Nobody has pointed me towards their self made remixes on soundcloud yet?

Are they very bad?

I didn't focus on that in my earlier post but I obviously agree with the argument that editing works of art is very much disrespectful of the artists' work, at least as soon as there is the risk that the fanmade edits replace the original.

I also happen to be like Dave: I'm an album kind of guy and my relationship to music makes it hard for me to "hate" a song. There are certainly artists or types of music that I am not receptive to, and that I would never listen to (hard-rock and heavy-metal comes to mind), but as soon as I appreciate an artist's work I will usually feel comfortable with his/her entire catalogue. Sure there will be songs that I love and others that I'm only OK with, but I will hardly ever reject a song, let alone a whole album. if I enjoy an album by an artist it's very likely that I'll be more or less interested in all of them.

Now I realize that my relation to art is probably biased because I am myself a writer (and an ex-musician), therefore I tend to:

1/ ... have an extreme, maybe excessive, respect for the quantity of work that it takes to produce a work of art, which makes it hard for me to condemn a honest artist. I know what it takes to produce a work of art, to bravely present it to the world, to be butchered by some prople who don't like it, to hurt because of it... I know the care, the sense of details one puts in the creation of a work of art, how every little thing matters, how every little thing is there for a reason and purpose. Therefore editing/reworking someone else's work of art just for personnal enjoyment is nothing but butchering someone's baby to me: I just can't imagine how MAD I'd be if there were edited or reconstructed versions of my texts circulating online. I'd probably want to behead whoever did it Thanks God I am not famous and therefore no one cares enough to do such a thing with my babies.

2/ ... appreciate works of art as an artist, not as a mere consumer: it's not just me liking it or not, it's me being interested on what has been done and why, which technics were used and why, which approach creates which effect and how the body of art is constructed, etc. I sometimes don't really like a work of art for esthetic reasons and at the same time admire the craftmanship of whoever created it. I don't "like" most of Gary Numan's recent albums, but I sometimes like to listen to them nonetheless because I find his approach and narrative technics interesting. I don't "like" Michel Gondry's films, but nonetheless I find them very interesting to watch and to study. For that reason, while I will sometimes want to listen to a song in particular, or keep only one song from an album that I will erase, I will listen to the whole album in 99,99% of cases.

This being said I'm cool with people having different opinions, and I appreciate the fact that 20 years being focused on creating works of art has had a huge impact on my opinion about this, so let's keep debating

Optimus2 said:

Just been using Audacity with Prince songs 2 make them louder (like Dity Mind etc)....suppose itll have 2 do till teh reamsters cum out......also on Shockedelica....Ive reapeated teh chorus twice yanno taht part that goes "Shockedelica doop ba doop ba doop bay"...it makes teh song better 2 my ears anyway....and ya wouldnt tell it was edited.......which is even cooler...also took teh shit rap out of Love Me 2 The 9's......any1 else use Audacity??? or edit Prince songs with it?

i made an edit of the diamonds and pearls album and replaced tony m with jar jar binks on all the tracks

unique said:

Optimus2 said:

Just been using Audacity with Prince songs 2 make them louder (like Dity Mind etc)....suppose itll have 2 do till teh reamsters cum out......also on Shockedelica....Ive reapeated teh chorus twice yanno taht part that goes "Shockedelica doop ba doop ba doop bay"...it makes teh song better 2 my ears anyway....and ya wouldnt tell it was edited.......which is even cooler...also took teh shit rap out of Love Me 2 The 9's......any1 else use Audacity??? or edit Prince songs with it?

i made an edit of the diamonds and pearls album and replaced tony m with jar jar binks on all the tracks

That might be an improvement... Share?

databank said:

I didn't focus on that in my earlier post but I obviously agree with the argument that editing works of art is very much disrespectful of the artists' work, at least as soon as there is the risk that the fanmade edits replace the original.

I also happen to be like Dave: I'm an album kind of guy and my relationship to music makes it hard for me to "hate" a song. There are certainly artists or types of music that I am not receptive to, and that I would never listen to (hard-rock and heavy-metal comes to mind), but as soon as I appreciate an artist's work I will usually feel comfortable with his/her entire catalogue. Sure there will be songs that I love and others that I'm only OK with, but I will hardly ever reject a song, let alone a whole album. if I enjoy an album by an artist it's very likely that I'll be more or less interested in all of them.

Now I realize that my relation to art is probably biased because I am myself a writer (and an ex-musician), therefore I tend to:

1/ ... have an extreme, maybe excessive, respect for the quantity of work that it takes to produce a work of art, which makes it hard for me to condemn a honest artist. I know what it takes to produce a work of art, to bravely present it to the world, to be butchered by some prople who don't like it, to hurt because of it... I know the care, the sense of details one puts in the creation of a work of art, how every little thing matters, how every little thing is there for a reason and purpose. Therefore editing/reworking someone else's work of art just for personnal enjoyment is nothing but butchering someone's baby to me: I just can't imagine how MAD I'd be if there were edited or reconstructed versions of my texts circulating online. I'd probably want to behead whoever did it Thanks God I am not famous and therefore no one cares enough to do such a thing with my babies.

2/ ... appreciate works of art as an artist, not as a mere consumer: it's not just me liking it or not, it's me being interested on what has been done and why, which technics were used and why, which approach creates which effect and how the body of art is constructed, etc. I sometimes don't really like a work of art for esthetic reasons and at the same time admire the craftmanship of whoever created it. I don't "like" most of Gary Numan's recent albums, but I sometimes like to listen to them nonetheless because I find his approach and narrative technics interesting. I don't "like" Michel Gondry's films, but nonetheless I find them very interesting to watch and to study. For that reason, while I will sometimes want to listen to a song in particular, or keep only one song from an album that I will erase, I will listen to the whole album in 99,99% of cases.

This being said I'm cool with people having different opinions, and I appreciate the fact that 20 years being focused on creating works of art has had a huge impact on my opinion about this, so let's keep debating

Cool, I can dig it... But,

Try this. What if you wrote a book, but, the print was very tiny, and some people chose to use a magnifying glass when reading it. I assume that would be cool with you. How about if 1 or 2 of your readers decided to make a photocopy of the book enlarging it, making it easier to read without a magnifying glass. Would that be okay? How about if they made a few extra copies and shared them with friends? Is any of this okay? Obviously if they went out and sold copies of their enlarged printing that would NOT be cool. But, the rest of it? Where should the line be drawn?

djThunderfunk said:

Cool, I can dig it... But,

Try this. What if you wrote a book, but, the print was very tiny, and some people chose to use a magnifying glass when reading it. I assume that would be cool with you. How about if 1 or 2 of your readers decided to make a photocopy of the book enlarging it, making it easier to read without a magnifying glass. Would that be okay? How about if they made a few extra copies and shared them with friends? Is any of this okay? Obviously if they went out and sold copies of their enlarged printing that would NOT be cool. But, the rest of it? Where should the line be drawn?

Dave1992 said:

No matter what I do, I can't get Track 4 on Rave to sound right.

djThunderfunk said:

databank said:

I didn't focus on that in my earlier post but I obviously agree with the argument that editing works of art is very much disrespectful of the artists' work, at least as soon as there is the risk that the fanmade edits replace the original.

I also happen to be like Dave: I'm an album kind of guy and my relationship to music makes it hard for me to "hate" a song. There are certainly artists or types of music that I am not receptive to, and that I would never listen to (hard-rock and heavy-metal comes to mind), but as soon as I appreciate an artist's work I will usually feel comfortable with his/her entire catalogue. Sure there will be songs that I love and others that I'm only OK with, but I will hardly ever reject a song, let alone a whole album. if I enjoy an album by an artist it's very likely that I'll be more or less interested in all of them.

Now I realize that my relation to art is probably biased because I am myself a writer (and an ex-musician), therefore I tend to:

1/ ... have an extreme, maybe excessive, respect for the quantity of work that it takes to produce a work of art, which makes it hard for me to condemn a honest artist. I know what it takes to produce a work of art, to bravely present it to the world, to be butchered by some prople who don't like it, to hurt because of it... I know the care, the sense of details one puts in the creation of a work of art, how every little thing matters, how every little thing is there for a reason and purpose. Therefore editing/reworking someone else's work of art just for personnal enjoyment is nothing but butchering someone's baby to me: I just can't imagine how MAD I'd be if there were edited or reconstructed versions of my texts circulating online. I'd probably want to behead whoever did it Thanks God I am not famous and therefore no one cares enough to do such a thing with my babies.

2/ ... appreciate works of art as an artist, not as a mere consumer: it's not just me liking it or not, it's me being interested on what has been done and why, which technics were used and why, which approach creates which effect and how the body of art is constructed, etc. I sometimes don't really like a work of art for esthetic reasons and at the same time admire the craftmanship of whoever created it. I don't "like" most of Gary Numan's recent albums, but I sometimes like to listen to them nonetheless because I find his approach and narrative technics interesting. I don't "like" Michel Gondry's films, but nonetheless I find them very interesting to watch and to study. For that reason, while I will sometimes want to listen to a song in particular, or keep only one song from an album that I will erase, I will listen to the whole album in 99,99% of cases.

This being said I'm cool with people having different opinions, and I appreciate the fact that 20 years being focused on creating works of art has had a huge impact on my opinion about this, so let's keep debating

Cool, I can dig it... But,

Try this. What if you wrote a book, but, the print was very tiny, and some people chose to use a magnifying glass when reading it. I assume that would be cool with you. How about if 1 or 2 of your readers decided to make a photocopy of the book enlarging it, making it easier to read without a magnifying glass. Would that be okay? How about if they made a few extra copies and shared them with friends? Is any of this okay? Obviously if they went out and sold copies of their enlarged printing that would NOT be cool. But, the rest of it? Where should the line be drawn?

There is no absolute rule: as you pointed earlier, and that was rekevant, the artists themselves will sometimes publish different versions of an album or project, a director may do different edits of his films, a writer rewrite a book 20 years later, and sometimes these edits/reworkings don't even come from the artist but from the label/studio/publisher, so it's part of the game to find out what one consider to be his/her "definitive" version (for example I'd always take the first released version of a a record in the time of release's dominant format), and it can be a lot of fun.

To come back to creative editing, I think enlarging a book is no big deal as long as you don't change the original presentation, for example by suppressing or adding page jumps or lines between paragraphs. Uusually the choice of the font and its size aren't part of what could considered "artistic choices", nor is the size of pages, so your example works.

As for Boris' The Dawn that you mentioned earlier, it's a good example: I haven't yet heard people claim it was an official release but since we are on a Prince fan foruml it's obvious most people here would know that The Dawn wasn't released. Other people who find it online may not. Now I already read several people on this very forum who believed and claimed that this project was done according to a real tracklist for a real unreleased project, and therefore considered The Dawnas being part of the Prince canon just as other early configurations of albums, while it was actually only Boris making the album of his dreams. Yeah sure it's not such a big deal in comparison to what's happening, say, in Lybia but you see my point.

Now I think that tracking a Lovesexy album isn't really a crime because if u do it carefully u don't really temper with the original material (it's obvious anyway that, when rereleased on CD format, all the vinyl-era Prince albums have been tracked by WB employees who didn't really care about doing it properly). Replacing Tony M. by Jar Jar Binks would obviously be creative editing for parody purposes so well, it's cool if it's labeled as such. Same goes for mashed-ups or creative remixes, I can tolerate this even though I hardly see the point. If someone "remixed" a poem I wrote and released it labeled as an unauthorized remix, I may be amused and possible even enjoy the result.

Now I'm much more hostile to editing Tony M. or a guitar solo out of a song, or moving a part of a song from one place to another, not for creative purposes but only because one doesn't like Tony M. or a guitar solo or the way the song is constructed. I'm already quite hostile to the whole concept of official radio edits anyway (butchering a song to make it less than 4 minutes so radios would play it to the masses) even if I understand their purpose and unfortunate necessity, so you can imagine how I feel about personnal, unauthorized edits... It's not being creative while toying with someone else's work, it's being egocentric, it's believing that one's personnal tastes are so important that they may be superior to the artists' vision and that one's vision of a work of art may deserve to "replace" the original.

Now you must understand that I'm not a fascist saying "this is allowed and this is forbidden" or "this is good and this is bad", and that I don't know myself exactly where the line should be drawn, I'm just basically saying that people should think before tempering with a work of art because a work of art is a very precious thing, and that everything should therefore be done with caution and respect, and possibly kept for one's personnal use.

I have tweaked many a Prince release. Most obvious indeed volume, for shuffling purposes; I have many Prince playlists and I can't bear to hear "Shy" burst out of the speakers, then have to walk to the sound system to jack up the volume when it's followed by a soft "If I Was Your Girlfriend"

Then there's the personal tweaks. I got the Parade vinyl and when I just wanted to play "New Position", my mind put the start at a different beat then the people who mastered/tracked it for CD release, which is the version I ripped to MP3.

So I recut those. Same with any song on CD that starts with leftover reverb of other songs, like the CD release of "Anotherloverholenyohead" starting with a slight 's' sound of the last nano-second of "Kiss". That stuff just grates me, so I got that edited as well.

Then there's the über personal tweaks, like remixing "New Power Generation" parts I and II into one song, the same with "S.S.T." and "Brand New Orleans". Or speeding up "I Love U In Me". (grin) There's nothing disrespectful about it; it's mixing them for my own listening pleasure. It's the same when I edit off the bells at the end of "Do Me Baby", so I can put that version in my playlists instead of the album version. It just makes my playlists leaner.

But in all, it made me listen to stuff more than I normally would.

databank said:

djThunderfunk said:

Cool, I can dig it... But,

Try this. What if you wrote a book, but, the print was very tiny, and some people chose to use a magnifying glass when reading it. I assume that would be cool with you. How about if 1 or 2 of your readers decided to make a photocopy of the book enlarging it, making it easier to read without a magnifying glass. Would that be okay? How about if they made a few extra copies and shared them with friends? Is any of this okay? Obviously if they went out and sold copies of their enlarged printing that would NOT be cool. But, the rest of it? Where should the line be drawn?

There is no absolute rule: as you pointed earlier, and that was rekevant, the artists themselves will sometimes publish different versions of an album or project, a director may do different edits of his films, a writer rewrite a book 20 years later, and sometimes these edits/reworkings don't even come from the artist but from the label/studio/publisher, so it's part of the game to find out what one consider to be his/her "definitive" version (for example I'd always take the first released version of a a record in the time of release's dominant format), and it can be a lot of fun.

To come back to creative editing, I think enlarging a book is no big deal as long as you don't change the original presentation, for example by suppressing or adding page jumps or lines between paragraphs. Uusually the choice of the font and its size aren't part of what could considered "artistic choices", nor is the size of pages, so your example works.

As for Boris' The Dawn that you mentioned earlier, it's a good example: I haven't yet heard people claim it was an official release but since we are on a Prince fan foruml it's obvious most people here would know that The Dawn wasn't released. Other people who find it online may not. Now I already read several people on this very forum who believed and claimed that this project was done according to a real tracklist for a real unreleased project, and therefore considered The Dawnas being part of the Prince canon just as other early configurations of albums, while it was actually only Boris making the album of his dreams. Yeah sure it's not such a big deal in comparison to what's happening, say, in Lybia but you see my point.

Now I think that tracking a Lovesexy album isn't really a crime because if u do it carefully u don't really temper with the original material (it's obvious anyway that, when rereleased on CD format, all the vinyl-era Prince albums have been tracked by WB employees who didn't really care about doing it properly). Replacing Tony M. by Jar Jar Binks would obviously be creative editing for parody purposes so well, it's cool if it's labeled as such. Same goes for mashed-ups or creative remixes, I can tolerate this even though I hardly see the point. If someone "remixed" a poem I wrote and released it labeled as an unauthorized remix, I may be amused and possible even enjoy the result.

Now I'm much more hostile to editing Tony M. or a guitar solo out of a song, or moving a part of a song from one place to another, not for creative purposes but only because one doesn't like Tony M. or a guitar solo or the way the song is constructed. I'm already quite hostile to the whole concept of official radio edits anyway (butchering a song to make it less than 4 minutes so radios would play it to the masses) even if I understand their purpose and unfortunate necessity, so you can imagine how I feel about personnal, unauthorized edits... It's not being creative while toying with someone else's work, it's being egocentric, it's believing that one's personnal tastes are so important that they may be superior to the artists' vision and that one's vision of a work of art may deserve to "replace" the original.

Now you must understand that I'm not a fascist saying "this is allowed and this is forbidden" or "this is good and this is bad", and that I don't know myself exactly where the line should be drawn, I'm just basically saying that people should think before tempering with a work of art because a work of art is a very precious thing, and that everything should therefore be done with caution and respect, and possibly kept for one's personnal use.

Everything you have stated here is absolutely reasonable. I can't disagree with any of it.

How about censored versions. Same song (sometimes entire album) with edits removing "objectionable" language. This is the thing that infuriates me. It's seems alright to have a radio friendly version of a song for airplay, but 2 versions of an album on the market is ridiculous. I've returned a disc or 2 that weren't properly labeled as censored versions on the packaging.

I know Prince released in 2 versions. There might have been a few of his albums released this way. This certainly is an alteration that harms the art and should be avoided at all cost.

HamsterHuey said:

I have tweaked many a Prince release. Most obvious indeed volume, for shuffling purposes; I have many Prince playlists and I can't bear to hear "Shy" burst out of the speakers, then have to walk to the sound system to jack up the volume when it's followed by a soft "If I Was Your Girlfriend"

Then there's the personal tweaks. I got the Parade vinyl and when I just wanted to play "New Position", my mind put the start at a different beat then the people who mastered/tracked it for CD release, which is the version I ripped to MP3.

So I recut those. Same with any song on CD that starts with leftover reverb of other songs, like the CD release of "Anotherloverholenyohead" starting with a slight 's' sound of the last nano-second of "Kiss". That stuff just grates me, so I got that edited as well.

Then there's the über personal tweaks, like remixing "New Power Generation" parts I and II into one song, the same with "S.S.T." and "Brand New Orleans". Or speeding up "I Love U In Me". (grin) There's nothing disrespectful about it; it's mixing them for my own listening pleasure. It's the same when I edit off the bells at the end of "Do Me Baby", so I can put that version in my playlists instead of the album version. It just makes my playlists leaner.

But in all, it made me listen to stuff more than I normally would.

djThunderfunk said:

databank said:

There is no absolute rule: as you pointed earlier, and that was rekevant, the artists themselves will sometimes publish different versions of an album or project, a director may do different edits of his films, a writer rewrite a book 20 years later, and sometimes these edits/reworkings don't even come from the artist but from the label/studio/publisher, so it's part of the game to find out what one consider to be his/her "definitive" version (for example I'd always take the first released version of a a record in the time of release's dominant format), and it can be a lot of fun.

To come back to creative editing, I think enlarging a book is no big deal as long as you don't change the original presentation, for example by suppressing or adding page jumps or lines between paragraphs. Uusually the choice of the font and its size aren't part of what could considered "artistic choices", nor is the size of pages, so your example works.

As for Boris' The Dawn that you mentioned earlier, it's a good example: I haven't yet heard people claim it was an official release but since we are on a Prince fan foruml it's obvious most people here would know that The Dawn wasn't released. Other people who find it online may not. Now I already read several people on this very forum who believed and claimed that this project was done according to a real tracklist for a real unreleased project, and therefore considered The Dawnas being part of the Prince canon just as other early configurations of albums, while it was actually only Boris making the album of his dreams. Yeah sure it's not such a big deal in comparison to what's happening, say, in Lybia but you see my point.

Now I think that tracking a Lovesexy album isn't really a crime because if u do it carefully u don't really temper with the original material (it's obvious anyway that, when rereleased on CD format, all the vinyl-era Prince albums have been tracked by WB employees who didn't really care about doing it properly). Replacing Tony M. by Jar Jar Binks would obviously be creative editing for parody purposes so well, it's cool if it's labeled as such. Same goes for mashed-ups or creative remixes, I can tolerate this even though I hardly see the point. If someone "remixed" a poem I wrote and released it labeled as an unauthorized remix, I may be amused and possible even enjoy the result.

Now I'm much more hostile to editing Tony M. or a guitar solo out of a song, or moving a part of a song from one place to another, not for creative purposes but only because one doesn't like Tony M. or a guitar solo or the way the song is constructed. I'm already quite hostile to the whole concept of official radio edits anyway (butchering a song to make it less than 4 minutes so radios would play it to the masses) even if I understand their purpose and unfortunate necessity, so you can imagine how I feel about personnal, unauthorized edits... It's not being creative while toying with someone else's work, it's being egocentric, it's believing that one's personnal tastes are so important that they may be superior to the artists' vision and that one's vision of a work of art may deserve to "replace" the original.

Now you must understand that I'm not a fascist saying "this is allowed and this is forbidden" or "this is good and this is bad", and that I don't know myself exactly where the line should be drawn, I'm just basically saying that people should think before tempering with a work of art because a work of art is a very precious thing, and that everything should therefore be done with caution and respect, and possibly kept for one's personnal use.

Everything you have stated here is absolutely reasonable. I can't disagree with any of it.

How about censored versions. Same song (sometimes entire album) with edits removing "objectionable" language. This is the thing that infuriates me. It's seems alright to have a radio friendly version of a song for airplay, but 2 versions of an album on the market is ridiculous. I've returned a disc or 2 that weren't properly labeled as censored versions on the packaging.

I know Prince released in 2 versions. There might have been a few of his albums released this way. This certainly is an alteration that harms the art and should be avoided at all cost.

the censored version of the album is worth it for the ridiculously hilarious "oowwwaa" replacing every instance of "fucker" throughout the entire song. I listen to it when I need a good belly laugh. the song is already ridiculous enough, but this puts it hysterically over the top

djThunderfunk said:

HamsterHuey said:

djThunderfunk said:

databank said:

There is no absolute rule: as you pointed earlier, and that was rekevant, the artists themselves will sometimes publish different versions of an album or project, a director may do different edits of his films, a writer rewrite a book 20 years later, and sometimes these edits/reworkings don't even come from the artist but from the label/studio/publisher, so it's part of the game to find out what one consider to be his/her "definitive" version (for example I'd always take the first released version of a a record in the time of release's dominant format), and it can be a lot of fun.

To come back to creative editing, I think enlarging a book is no big deal as long as you don't change the original presentation, for example by suppressing or adding page jumps or lines between paragraphs. Uusually the choice of the font and its size aren't part of what could considered "artistic choices", nor is the size of pages, so your example works.

As for Boris' The Dawn that you mentioned earlier, it's a good example: I haven't yet heard people claim it was an official release but since we are on a Prince fan foruml it's obvious most people here would know that The Dawn wasn't released. Other people who find it online may not. Now I already read several people on this very forum who believed and claimed that this project was done according to a real tracklist for a real unreleased project, and therefore considered The Dawnas being part of the Prince canon just as other early configurations of albums, while it was actually only Boris making the album of his dreams. Yeah sure it's not such a big deal in comparison to what's happening, say, in Lybia but you see my point.

Now I think that tracking a Lovesexy album isn't really a crime because if u do it carefully u don't really temper with the original material (it's obvious anyway that, when rereleased on CD format, all the vinyl-era Prince albums have been tracked by WB employees who didn't really care about doing it properly). Replacing Tony M. by Jar Jar Binks would obviously be creative editing for parody purposes so well, it's cool if it's labeled as such. Same goes for mashed-ups or creative remixes, I can tolerate this even though I hardly see the point. If someone "remixed" a poem I wrote and released it labeled as an unauthorized remix, I may be amused and possible even enjoy the result.

Now I'm much more hostile to editing Tony M. or a guitar solo out of a song, or moving a part of a song from one place to another, not for creative purposes but only because one doesn't like Tony M. or a guitar solo or the way the song is constructed. I'm already quite hostile to the whole concept of official radio edits anyway (butchering a song to make it less than 4 minutes so radios would play it to the masses) even if I understand their purpose and unfortunate necessity, so you can imagine how I feel about personnal, unauthorized edits... It's not being creative while toying with someone else's work, it's being egocentric, it's believing that one's personnal tastes are so important that they may be superior to the artists' vision and that one's vision of a work of art may deserve to "replace" the original.

Now you must understand that I'm not a fascist saying "this is allowed and this is forbidden" or "this is good and this is bad", and that I don't know myself exactly where the line should be drawn, I'm just basically saying that people should think before tempering with a work of art because a work of art is a very precious thing, and that everything should therefore be done with caution and respect, and possibly kept for one's personnal use.

Everything you have stated here is absolutely reasonable. I can't disagree with any of it.

How about censored versions. Same song (sometimes entire album) with edits removing "objectionable" language. This is the thing that infuriates me. It's seems alright to have a radio friendly version of a song for airplay, but 2 versions of an album on the market is ridiculous. I've returned a disc or 2 that weren't properly labeled as censored versions on the packaging.

I know Prince released in 2 versions. There might have been a few of his albums released this way. This certainly is an alteration that harms the art and should be avoided at all cost.

i hate cencored versions. i actually edit in swearing to tracks that don't have any originally

djThunderfunk said:

Dave1992 said:

Nobody really cares the way you think we do, it's just that we voice our opinions and say that we think what you do is morally wrong and disrespecting.

I am going to be laughing all day.

I'm "morally wrong and disrespecting" for listening to songs on shuffle.

Oh that is so crazy.

Guess, what. I had bootlegs of the Black Album before it was released too..

I must be evil as shit!

Seriously. This is the craziest, most hilarious, baffling stance that I have seen on the org in awhile.

Thanks!!

I was rather refering to changing a song itself, not listening on shuffle. I don't find it "morally wrong" to listen to mp3 files on shuffle (why should I?), even though I hardly ever do it myself.

databank said:

I didn't focus on that in my earlier post but I obviously agree with the argument that editing works of art is very much disrespectful of the artists' work, at least as soon as there is the risk that the fanmade edits replace the original.

I also happen to be like Dave: I'm an album kind of guy and my relationship to music makes it hard for me to "hate" a song. There are certainly artists or types of music that I am not receptive to, and that I would never listen to (hard-rock and heavy-metal comes to mind), but as soon as I appreciate an artist's work I will usually feel comfortable with his/her entire catalogue. Sure there will be songs that I love and others that I'm only OK with, but I will hardly ever reject a song, let alone a whole album. if I enjoy an album by an artist it's very likely that I'll be more or less interested in all of them.

Now I realize that my relation to art is probably biased because I am myself a writer (and an ex-musician), therefore I tend to:

1/ ... have an extreme, maybe excessive, respect for the quantity of work that it takes to produce a work of art, which makes it hard for me to condemn a honest artist. I know what it takes to produce a work of art, to bravely present it to the world, to be butchered by some prople who don't like it, to hurt because of it... I know the care, the sense of details one puts in the creation of a work of art, how every little thing matters, how every little thing is there for a reason and purpose. Therefore editing/reworking someone else's work of art just for personnal enjoyment is nothing but butchering someone's baby to me: I just can't imagine how MAD I'd be if there were edited or reconstructed versions of my texts circulating online. I'd probably want to behead whoever did it Thanks God I am not famous and therefore no one cares enough to do such a thing with my babies.

2/ ... appreciate works of art as an artist, not as a mere consumer: it's not just me liking it or not, it's me being interested on what has been done and why, which technics were used and why, which approach creates which effect and how the body of art is constructed, etc. I sometimes don't really like a work of art for esthetic reasons and at the same time admire the craftmanship of whoever created it. I don't "like" most of Gary Numan's recent albums, but I sometimes like to listen to them nonetheless because I find his approach and narrative technics interesting. I don't "like" Michel Gondry's films, but nonetheless I find them very interesting to watch and to study. For that reason, while I will sometimes want to listen to a song in particular, or keep only one song from an album that I will erase, I will listen to the whole album in 99,99% of cases.

This being said I'm cool with people having different opinions, and I appreciate the fact that 20 years being focused on creating works of art has had a huge impact on my opinion about this, so let's keep debating

It's the absolutely same with me. I agree on everything you said.

djThunderfunk said:

databank said:

I didn't focus on that in my earlier post but I obviously agree with the argument that editing works of art is very much disrespectful of the artists' work, at least as soon as there is the risk that the fanmade edits replace the original.

I also happen to be like Dave: I'm an album kind of guy and my relationship to music makes it hard for me to "hate" a song. There are certainly artists or types of music that I am not receptive to, and that I would never listen to (hard-rock and heavy-metal comes to mind), but as soon as I appreciate an artist's work I will usually feel comfortable with his/her entire catalogue. Sure there will be songs that I love and others that I'm only OK with, but I will hardly ever reject a song, let alone a whole album. if I enjoy an album by an artist it's very likely that I'll be more or less interested in all of them.

Now I realize that my relation to art is probably biased because I am myself a writer (and an ex-musician), therefore I tend to:

1/ ... have an extreme, maybe excessive, respect for the quantity of work that it takes to produce a work of art, which makes it hard for me to condemn a honest artist. I know what it takes to produce a work of art, to bravely present it to the world, to be butchered by some prople who don't like it, to hurt because of it... I know the care, the sense of details one puts in the creation of a work of art, how every little thing matters, how every little thing is there for a reason and purpose. Therefore editing/reworking someone else's work of art just for personnal enjoyment is nothing but butchering someone's baby to me: I just can't imagine how MAD I'd be if there were edited or reconstructed versions of my texts circulating online. I'd probably want to behead whoever did it Thanks God I am not famous and therefore no one cares enough to do such a thing with my babies.

2/ ... appreciate works of art as an artist, not as a mere consumer: it's not just me liking it or not, it's me being interested on what has been done and why, which technics were used and why, which approach creates which effect and how the body of art is constructed, etc. I sometimes don't really like a work of art for esthetic reasons and at the same time admire the craftmanship of whoever created it. I don't "like" most of Gary Numan's recent albums, but I sometimes like to listen to them nonetheless because I find his approach and narrative technics interesting. I don't "like" Michel Gondry's films, but nonetheless I find them very interesting to watch and to study. For that reason, while I will sometimes want to listen to a song in particular, or keep only one song from an album that I will erase, I will listen to the whole album in 99,99% of cases.

This being said I'm cool with people having different opinions, and I appreciate the fact that 20 years being focused on creating works of art has had a huge impact on my opinion about this, so let's keep debating

Cool, I can dig it... But,

Try this. What if you wrote a book, but, the print was very tiny, and some people chose to use a magnifying glass when reading it. I assume that would be cool with you. How about if 1 or 2 of your readers decided to make a photocopy of the book enlarging it, making it easier to read without a magnifying glass. Would that be okay? How about if they made a few extra copies and shared them with friends? Is any of this okay? Obviously if they went out and sold copies of their enlarged printing that would NOT be cool. But, the rest of it? Where should the line be drawn?

I'd say a big factor is the artist's original intent. If they wanted to print to be small (for whatever reason) I would never toy with it. Plus, if they wanted the print to be bigger, they'd probably release a second edit with larger print, so...

I think it would also be interesting if a musician gave a hint as to what volume and in what environment a song should be listened to. Due to practical reasons the consumer has been given control over this part of work and it may sound like a very extreme stance, but in the end, the volume of a song and the place where we listen to a piece changes so much, it's impossible that not many artists have thought about dilemma.

errant said:

Dave1992 said:

Why would you "shuffle" old tracks with new ones and try to level them in volume? ATWIAD is from 1985 and those tracks were recorded around that time and are meant to make a stance for that certain period. They belong together and they belong on that album. The volume level and sound issues are a part of that time and part of those songs. If Prince wanted ATWIAD to sound completely loud and clean, he would re-record it for us.

Sorry, but are you insane? By your reasoning, I should never listen to the vocal version of "God" without first listening to the 4 minute radio edit of "Purple Rain." and which is the one I'm intended to listen to? Rave UN2 the Joy Fanstastic? Or Rave IN2? As for turning up the volume of tracks for older CD's, their level is a byproduct of the technology of the time, rather than Prince intending for them to sound extrememly quiet compared to an album from 5 years later. You really think "Strollin'" was recorded and pressed with Prince thinking, "Oh, this one is meant to sound louder on the CD than "Temptation"".

No, because a single is usually released for mainly commercial purposes. That's why "greatest hits" CDs don't really count as "albums" to me and neither do "singles" with b-sides count as cohesive work efforts with a complete artistic plan throughout.

And, like I already said, yes, the volume of older tracks is a byproduct of the technology of that time. So why would you change it, then? If Prince wanted it to be louder, he'd re-release it. And if Prince had thought at that time that Temptation wasn't loud enough (and he could have made all his albums from 1999 to Lovesexy a lot louder - the technology was there, he just decided for dynamics rather than loudness), he wouldn't have released it!

djThunderfunk said:

databank said:

There is no absolute rule: as you pointed earlier, and that was rekevant, the artists themselves will sometimes publish different versions of an album or project, a director may do different edits of his films, a writer rewrite a book 20 years later, and sometimes these edits/reworkings don't even come from the artist but from the label/studio/publisher, so it's part of the game to find out what one consider to be his/her "definitive" version (for example I'd always take the first released version of a a record in the time of release's dominant format), and it can be a lot of fun.

To come back to creative editing, I think enlarging a book is no big deal as long as you don't change the original presentation, for example by suppressing or adding page jumps or lines between paragraphs. Uusually the choice of the font and its size aren't part of what could considered "artistic choices", nor is the size of pages, so your example works.

As for Boris' The Dawn that you mentioned earlier, it's a good example: I haven't yet heard people claim it was an official release but since we are on a Prince fan foruml it's obvious most people here would know that The Dawn wasn't released. Other people who find it online may not. Now I already read several people on this very forum who believed and claimed that this project was done according to a real tracklist for a real unreleased project, and therefore considered The Dawnas being part of the Prince canon just as other early configurations of albums, while it was actually only Boris making the album of his dreams. Yeah sure it's not such a big deal in comparison to what's happening, say, in Lybia but you see my point.

Now I think that tracking a Lovesexy album isn't really a crime because if u do it carefully u don't really temper with the original material (it's obvious anyway that, when rereleased on CD format, all the vinyl-era Prince albums have been tracked by WB employees who didn't really care about doing it properly). Replacing Tony M. by Jar Jar Binks would obviously be creative editing for parody purposes so well, it's cool if it's labeled as such. Same goes for mashed-ups or creative remixes, I can tolerate this even though I hardly see the point. If someone "remixed" a poem I wrote and released it labeled as an unauthorized remix, I may be amused and possible even enjoy the result.

Now I'm much more hostile to editing Tony M. or a guitar solo out of a song, or moving a part of a song from one place to another, not for creative purposes but only because one doesn't like Tony M. or a guitar solo or the way the song is constructed. I'm already quite hostile to the whole concept of official radio edits anyway (butchering a song to make it less than 4 minutes so radios would play it to the masses) even if I understand their purpose and unfortunate necessity, so you can imagine how I feel about personnal, unauthorized edits... It's not being creative while toying with someone else's work, it's being egocentric, it's believing that one's personnal tastes are so important that they may be superior to the artists' vision and that one's vision of a work of art may deserve to "replace" the original.

Now you must understand that I'm not a fascist saying "this is allowed and this is forbidden" or "this is good and this is bad", and that I don't know myself exactly where the line should be drawn, I'm just basically saying that people should think before tempering with a work of art because a work of art is a very precious thing, and that everything should therefore be done with caution and respect, and possibly kept for one's personnal use.

Everything you have stated here is absolutely reasonable. I can't disagree with any of it.

How about censored versions. Same song (sometimes entire album) with edits removing "objectionable" language. This is the thing that infuriates me. It's seems alright to have a radio friendly version of a song for airplay, but 2 versions of an album on the market is ridiculous. I've returned a disc or 2 that weren't properly labeled as censored versions on the packaging.

I know Prince released in 2 versions. There might have been a few of his albums released this way. This certainly is an alteration that harms the art and should be avoided at all cost.

ASAIK only and Emancipation were released with profanity edited out. I agree that it's butchering as well, as it is done for commercial reasons only just as radio edits (later for religious reasons on some NPGMC re-releases, but that's yet another matter). Now Prince obviously agreed with this being done and handled the edits himself and often dealt with it in a creative manner (Sexy MF for example). I don't really believe in censoring profanities anyway, because in France, contrarly to the USA, profanities are never censored on radio or TV: u can say very bad words in the media and nobody cares, it's part of our culture and therefore the way US medias are terrorized by profanities is really odd to us folks

Many TV channels also edit the goriest things out of horror movies (and this is something they sometimes do in France). That's quite annoying as well!

unique said:

djThunderfunk said:

Everything you have stated here is absolutely reasonable. I can't disagree with any of it.

How about censored versions. Same song (sometimes entire album) with edits removing "objectionable" language. This is the thing that infuriates me. It's seems alright to have a radio friendly version of a song for airplay, but 2 versions of an album on the market is ridiculous. I've returned a disc or 2 that weren't properly labeled as censored versions on the packaging.

I know Prince released in 2 versions. There might have been a few of his albums released this way. This certainly is an alteration that harms the art and should be avoided at all cost.

i hate cencored versions. i actually edit in swearing to tracks that don't have any originally

Dave1992 said:

errant said:

Dave1992 said: Sorry, but are you insane? By your reasoning, I should never listen to the vocal version of "God" without first listening to the 4 minute radio edit of "Purple Rain." and which is the one I'm intended to listen to? Rave UN2 the Joy Fanstastic? Or Rave IN2? As for turning up the volume of tracks for older CD's, their level is a byproduct of the technology of the time, rather than Prince intending for them to sound extrememly quiet compared to an album from 5 years later. You really think "Strollin'" was recorded and pressed with Prince thinking, "Oh, this one is meant to sound louder on the CD than "Temptation"".

No, because a single is usually released for mainly commercial purposes. That's why "greatest hits" CDs don't really count as "albums" to me and neither do "singles" with b-sides count as cohesive work efforts with a complete artistic plan throughout.

And, like I already said, yes, the volume of older tracks is a byproduct of the technology of that time. So why would you change it, then? If Prince wanted it to be louder, he'd re-release it. And if Prince had thought at that time that Temptation wasn't loud enough (and he could have made all his albums from 1999 to Lovesexy a lot louder - the technology was there, he just decided for dynamics rather than loudness), he wouldn't have released it!

You really think that Prince had anything do to with the volume on the pressings of his pre-'90s CD's?

Dave1992 said:

djThunderfunk said:

Cool, I can dig it... But,

Try this. What if you wrote a book, but, the print was very tiny, and some people chose to use a magnifying glass when reading it. I assume that would be cool with you. How about if 1 or 2 of your readers decided to make a photocopy of the book enlarging it, making it easier to read without a magnifying glass. Would that be okay? How about if they made a few extra copies and shared them with friends? Is any of this okay? Obviously if they went out and sold copies of their enlarged printing that would NOT be cool. But, the rest of it? Where should the line be drawn?

I'd say a big factor is the artist's original intent. If they wanted to print to be small (for whatever reason) I would never toy with it. Plus, if they wanted the print to be bigger, they'd probably release a second edit with larger print, so...

I think it would also be interesting if a musician gave a hint as to what volume and in what environment a song should be listened to. Due to practical reasons the consumer has been given control over this part of work and it may sound like a very extreme stance, but in the end, the volume of a song and the place where we listen to a piece changes so much, it's impossible that not many artists have thought about dilemma.

As a professionally trained audio engineer, let me assure you:

The volume on the 80s Prince CDs is not lower than modern discs because that is how Prince wants them to be heard. It is due to the mastering standards of the time being slow to adjust to the capabilities and limitatiuons of the CD format. From the start of music being released on CD, the levels of the discs gradually got louder and louder. In my opinion they finally were getting it right in the mid 90s (for Prince around Gold Experience). The problem is they didn't stop, and now almost all music produced is mastered too loud which causes clipping and other distortions. This has nothing to do with an artists desire and everything to do with industry standards. It's harder to "fix" music mastered too loud. You can reduce volume but the clipping and distortion are already present and can't be repaired at this stage. It's easy to "fix" music mastered too low. As long as you don't make it loud enough to cause any distortion all is good. No artist should be upset by this type of tinkering. It changes NOTHING of the original mix. It's merely one more volume control (albeit a permanent one) between the music and your ears.

I can't make heads or tails out of these computer programs. All those charts and graphs look like hospital life support systems to me. I have a CD recorder (a stereo component, not a computer program). I just simply record songs onto CDs just like you were sitting down and recording a cassette tape. To make the music louder, I either turn up the volume on my mixer or I can adjust the recording level knob on the recorder.

I've recorded all my old Prince vinyl onto CDs and they sound much better than the original CDs. The original CDs are not the way Prince "intended" for the songs to sound because they were originally released on vinyl. Put an old Prince record on the turntable and put the same album on those original CDs in a CD player and slide the volume levels to the same number on the mixer for both songs and you will clearly hear that the CD volume is much lower than the vinyl volume. The CD doesn't even sound like a CD, it sounds more like an old worn out cassette tape. Now that I've recorded all my Prince vinyl onto CDs and put it in my computer, I'm still not satisfied with it. I think I overdid it. The volume matches new CDs but I mainly listen to old music so when a Prince song pops up during shuffle, now it's louder than the songs from the other artists. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Dave1992 said:

I strongly oppose the idea of toying with somebody else's work of art and finished creation, especially when the purpose is not to "cover" it, but to simply "tweak" it for personal pleasure. It just sounds very ignorant and egoistical to me, taking what we like and leaving what we don't like, with no regards to the amount of time, money, ideas and energy the orinigal artist invested in order to make it sound just the way it is.

If it ain't "official" or approved by the person who created the original, it's not only an infringement of their intellectual property, but also very disrespecting on a moral level (at least to me).

We can all say that it's a pity Prince doesn't want to release remasters of his old albums etc, but it's his decision and we should live with it. In the end, we wouldn't even crave for remasters if he hadn't given us all this wonderful music in the first place.

It's not like that at all. It's just simply making your own creation and entertaining yourself and others. I wouldn't want to go to a nightclub where a DJ just simply puts on an album and plays it in it's entirety. I would want the DJ to play one track from an artist and play the next track from another artist. Of course the DJ is right there to adjust the volume on all the songs and level it out continuously but if you're listening to something at home on shuffle, a low volume song in the middle of a bunch of high volume songs just spoils the whole mood.

As for remixing songs, I love to hear how people remix songs because it's like hearing a whole new version that I've never heard before. It's a surprise rather than just routinely hearing the same old song. The best way to explain it would be going to a concert. I wouldn't want to go to a concert and hear the artist and the band perform the songs identical to the way they sound on the album. If that's the case, I could just save my money and stay home and listen to the album instead. I would want the songs switched up and performed like I haven't heard them before.

errant said:

Dave1992 said:

No, because a single is usually released for mainly commercial purposes. That's why "greatest hits" CDs don't really count as "albums" to me and neither do "singles" with b-sides count as cohesive work efforts with a complete artistic plan throughout.

And, like I already said, yes, the volume of older tracks is a byproduct of the technology of that time. So why would you change it, then? If Prince wanted it to be louder, he'd re-release it. And if Prince had thought at that time that Temptation wasn't loud enough (and he could have made all his albums from 1999 to Lovesexy a lot louder - the technology was there, he just decided for dynamics rather than loudness), he wouldn't have released it!

You really think that Prince had anything do to with the volume on the pressings of his pre-'90s CD's?

Of course. I don't think he intended his 80s output to be that "quiet"; he just didn't give much of a fuck. There are a lot of other albums from that same era by other artists (unremastered), which are way louder.

djThunderfunk said:

Dave1992 said:

I'd say a big factor is the artist's original intent. If they wanted to print to be small (for whatever reason) I would never toy with it. Plus, if they wanted the print to be bigger, they'd probably release a second edit with larger print, so...

I think it would also be interesting if a musician gave a hint as to what volume and in what environment a song should be listened to. Due to practical reasons the consumer has been given control over this part of work and it may sound like a very extreme stance, but in the end, the volume of a song and the place where we listen to a piece changes so much, it's impossible that not many artists have thought about dilemma.

As a professionally trained audio engineer, let me assure you:

The volume on the 80s Prince CDs is not lower than modern discs because that is how Prince wants them to be heard. It is due to the mastering standards of the time being slow to adjust to the capabilities and limitatiuons of the CD format. From the start of music being released on CD, the levels of the discs gradually got louder and louder. In my opinion they finally were getting it right in the mid 90s (for Prince around Gold Experience). The problem is they didn't stop, and now almost all music produced is mastered too loud which causes clipping and other distortions. This has nothing to do with an artists desire and everything to do with industry standards. It's harder to "fix" music mastered too loud. You can reduce volume but the clipping and distortion are already present and can't be repaired at this stage. It's easy to "fix" music mastered too low. As long as you don't make it loud enough to cause any distortion all is good. No artist should be upset by this type of tinkering. It changes NOTHING of the original mix. It's merely one more volume control (albeit a permanent one) between the music and your ears.

No need to school me on audio engineering.

And you're not right, by making a finished mix louder without tinkering with the original pool of tracks you change much more than "just the volume and nothing more". If you really are a "professionally trained audio engineer", as you claim to be, you should know that.

vainandy said:

Dave1992 said:

I strongly oppose the idea of toying with somebody else's work of art and finished creation, especially when the purpose is not to "cover" it, but to simply "tweak" it for personal pleasure. It just sounds very ignorant and egoistical to me, taking what we like and leaving what we don't like, with no regards to the amount of time, money, ideas and energy the orinigal artist invested in order to make it sound just the way it is.

If it ain't "official" or approved by the person who created the original, it's not only an infringement of their intellectual property, but also very disrespecting on a moral level (at least to me).

We can all say that it's a pity Prince doesn't want to release remasters of his old albums etc, but it's his decision and we should live with it. In the end, we wouldn't even crave for remasters if he hadn't given us all this wonderful music in the first place.

It's not like that at all. It's just simply making your own creation and entertaining yourself and others. I wouldn't want to go to a nightclub where a DJ just simply puts on an album and plays it in it's entirety. I would want the DJ to play one track from an artist and play the next track from another artist. Of course the DJ is right there to adjust the volume on all the songs and level it out continuously but if you're listening to something at home on shuffle, a low volume song in the middle of a bunch of high volume songs just spoils the whole mood.

As for remixing songs, I love to hear how people remix songs because it's like hearing a whole new version that I've never heard before. It's a surprise rather than just routinely hearing the same old song. The best way to explain it would be going to a concert. I wouldn't want to go to a concert and hear the artist and the band perform the songs identical to the way they sound on the album. If that's the case, I could just save my money and stay home and listen to the album instead. I would want the songs switched up and performed like I haven't heard them before.

I do agree with you!

But: to me, the whole DJ and nightclub thingy is something different overall. Again, the centre of these events is not to fulfill and get as close as possible to an artist's vision of his work, but merely to satisfiy the commcercial purpose of soundwaves originating from said piece of work. It's cool for what it is, though.

A remix is also something else, because it literally means somebody "re-mixes" the song (usually with a completely new approach, not intending a song to sound "better" than the original, but simply make it a different song).I just find the idea of someone changing a song thinking "now it's better; this is the way it should have been done!" very ignorant and actually disrespectful.

Imagine somebody took the bass line out of If I Was Your Girlfriend and replaced it with a fat, modern, house-rhythmical synth-line, just because it "sounds better". Then they'd change the "girl" in the chorus to "boy", just because it's "more normal and accessible" like that. It wouldn't be a "remix". We'd probably call that a "rape by some idiot who didn't understand what the original song was meant to convey" and rightly so. All other musical choices included.

Dave1992 said:

errant said:

You really think that Prince had anything do to with the volume on the pressings of his pre-'90s CD's?

Of course. I don't think he intended his 80s output to be that "quiet"; he just didn't give much of a fuck. There are a lot of other albums from that same era by other artists (unremastered), which are way louder.

He had absolutely nothing to do with it.

errant said:

Dave1992 said:

Of course. I don't think he intended his 80s output to be that "quiet"; he just didn't give much of a fuck. There are a lot of other albums from that same era by other artists (unremastered), which are way louder.

He had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Do you really expect me to reply to this or play along and ask you why you think so?