Am I the only one whose downloads sound awful? Ironically, the .wav for "Screwdriver" is the worst of the four, but they all suffer from a tremendous amount of clipping. The distortion – drums, bass, and even vocal sibilance – is just terrible. "Screwdriver" is nearly unlistenable. I mean, a file is a file is a file, so I can't be the only one having this problem, right?

(And I don't mean to swan in here with a complaint as my first post in a decade, but I was really surprised nobody else was discussing it. As for the songs: they're pretty good! "Breakfast Can Wait" sounds like a good song that got left off of "New Power Soul.")

We are the iTunes generation, we have no idea what you're talking about!

they are fine to me

OK: you are probably right.. and, the thread about the new songs is full of these complaints too.

but.... please stop, try and be a little grateful and enjoy what you get, right..?

just imo... people should give in, and enjoy the music..

well at least I am excited.. about the 4 new tracks:

Breakfast Can Wait is fantastic..

As someone who first started listening to Prince via cassette tapes, muffled radio dubs, scratchy 45s and VHS copies of videos -- it all sounds GREAT to me!

I didn't care then and I don't care now.

[Edited 2/6/13 18:49pm]

thedance said:

OK: you are probably right.. and, the thread about the new songs is full of these complaints too.

but.... please stop, try and be a little grateful and enjoy what you get, right..?

just imo... people should give in, and enjoy the music..

well at least I am excited.. about the 4 new tracks:

Breakfast Can Wait is fantastic..

LOL. Give in and enjoy the music. Really? We expect more and should get more. This is second rate.

I'm not an audiophile, so I don't know.

AhPook said:

My downloads sound like shit too. I love the tracks, but I can't listen to them in the car or on decent headphones without cringing.

OK. Glad it's not just me. Thanks for the response.

hi revox

revox said:

Am I the only one whose downloads sound awful? Ironically, the .wav for "Screwdriver" is the worst of the four, but they all suffer from a tremendous amount of clipping. The distortion – drums, bass, and even vocal sibilance – is just terrible. "Screwdriver" is nearly unlistenable. I mean, a file is a file is a file, so I can't be the only one having this problem, right?

(And I don't mean to swan in here with a complaint as my first post in a decade, but I was really surprised nobody else was discussing it. As for the songs: they're pretty good! "Breakfast Can Wait" sounds like a good song that got left off of "New Power Soul.")

They sound awful on earbuds. They sound great on my 800W Peavey system.

Yes, there is clipping. The same clipping present on all the new releases I've heard for more than 10 years now, on all formats, including CD.

Current industry standards for this suck and these tracks are within the parameters of those standards.

Use a good sound system with a good EQ, or only listen to recordings made or mastered in the 20th century...

Well, my right ear is half deaf so I may not be the best judge on that, but sound quality has got worse in the last decades... Not only Prince's one, actually. After all he may be right about digital music... I got accustomed to it, but sometimes I think my old tapes sounded better (maybe I'm just getting old, you know, "once everything was better" ).

I don't find them unlistenable though, but you need a good device to listen to them, that's true.

I think Screwdriver is intentionally gritty. I don't hear harsh clipping on any of these downloads. Sounds appropriate to me.

The low end is a little loose on Breakfast can wait, but the mids are very tight on all these new downloads. I hope he keeps releasing music in this manner. I don't have any complaints, especially with the sound quality.

thedance said:

OK: you are probably right.. and, the thread about the new songs is full of these complaints too.

but.... please stop, try and be a little grateful and enjoy what you get, right..?

just imo... people should give in, and enjoy the music..

well at least I am excited.. about the 4 new tracks:

Breakfast Can Wait is fantastic..

People are grateful and do enjoy new Prince music, but some of us would appreciate files that are not seriously clipped. I know that is not only an issue with Prince's music, but with modern music in general. Still it is a valid point worth expressing, someone in Prince's camp might pick up on it.

And people with high end stereo systems would like to be able to buy high quality uncompressed files. The better your system, the more unforgiving it is to low quality compressed files. I am sure Prince himself would like his art to be comsumed in the best possible way, so why not put up some wavs as well? He could even charge a bit more for it to cover the cost of bandwith. It is not so much a complaint but a request to also put up CD quality wav files or even better, high res audio.

ToyStein said:

I think Screwdriver is intentionally gritty. I don't hear harsh clipping on any of these downloads. Sounds appropriate to me.

The low end is a little loose on Breakfast can wait, but the mids are very tight on all these new downloads. I hope he keeps releasing music in this manner. I don't have any complaints, especially with the sound quality.

Yeah in the case of Screwdriver I think it is intentionally gritty. The clipping doesn't take away from my listening pleasure here.

One possibility:

Switch of your EQ program or setting on the computer, and listen to them 'sec'.

It's scary how computers come these days with programs that boost and beef up the sound as a matter of fact.

If you have a loud-sound mp3, these setting will push the song beyond accetable.

They sound good to me.

I've got four new songs at the price of rough 50 english pence each. I'm happy.

OperatingThetan said:

They sound good to me.

I've got four new songs at the price of rough 50 english pence each. I'm happy.

The value for money is definately good, I'll give you that.

It's the volume war, and it's awful.

imago said:

I've said enough about it in the other thread. The cipping is awful and there's no good reason for it, it's not like he needs to compete with the other artists vying for radio play.

This is what Prince should be doing differently, mastering for the best quality output. I don't mind 320k mp3's, that's fine but the source needs to be good.

The wav of screwdriver suffers greatly too.

rdhull said:

hi revox

Right back at you!

funkaholic1972 said:

thedance said:

OK: you are probably right.. and, the thread about the new songs is full of these complaints too.

but.... please stop, try and be a little grateful and enjoy what you get, right..?

just imo... people should give in, and enjoy the music..

well at least I am excited.. about the 4 new tracks:

Breakfast Can Wait is fantastic..

People are grateful and do enjoy new Prince music, but some of us would appreciate files that are not seriously clipped. I know that is not only an issue with Prince's music, but with modern music in general. Still it is a valid point worth expressing, someone in Prince's camp might pick up on it.

And people with high end stereo systems would like to be able to buy high quality uncompressed files. The better your system, the more unforgiving it is to low quality compressed files. I am sure Prince himself would like his art to be comsumed in the best possible way, so why not put up some wavs as well? He could even charge a bit more for it to cover the cost of bandwith. It is not so much a complaint but a request to also put up CD quality wav files or even better, high res audio.

But for me, the .wav is the one that sounds the worst.

Still, I'm mainly just "glad" that it's not just me that's noticing it. It's really distracting on "Screwdriver" (and yes, I'm listening on a good system that's optimized for, like, EVERY OTHER RECORDING I OWN), and just a little disappointing.

Also: LOL at all of you "SHUT UP AND BE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR ANYTHING YOU GET" folks. I think all of us are glad Prince has finally come around to trying out Internet distribution again and also that he's abandoning the idea of the fixed album as the only delivery mechanism for his music. Just a few kinks to work out! (As usual.)

Also good to see the org has gotten no less polarized. For those who don't know me: I'm on Team Let's Try And Not Be Ridiculous.

Also: LOL at all of you "SHUT UP AND BE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR ANYTHING YOU GET" folks. I think all of us are glad Prince has finally come around to trying out Internet distribution again and also that he's abandoning the idea of the fixed album as the only delivery mechanism for his music. Just a few kinks to work out! (As usual.)

Also good to see the org has gotten no less polarized. For those who don't know me: I'm on Team Let's Try And Not Be Ridiculous.

Funny, I can't see where anyone said to "SHUT UP". You asked a question and people posted their thoughts. Guess anyone who doesn't agree is "ridiculous"?

Okayyy...

dustoff said:

TheEnglishGent said:

dustoff said:

Funny, I can't see where anyone said to "SHUT UP". You asked a question and people posted their thoughts. Guess anyone who doesn't agree is "ridiculous"?

Okayyy...

You need the other thread for the shut uppers. Seems some don't want their great music without defects.

This just completely baffles me! Who wouldn't want their stuff in the best possible quality???

revox said:

Am I the only one whose downloads sound awful? Ironically, the .wav for "Screwdriver" is the worst of the four, but they all suffer from a tremendous amount of clipping. The distortion – drums, bass, and even vocal sibilance – is just terrible. "Screwdriver" is nearly unlistenable. I mean, a file is a file is a file, so I can't be the only one having this problem, right?

(And I don't mean to swan in here with a complaint as my first post in a decade, but I was really surprised nobody else was discussing it. As for the songs: they're pretty good! "Breakfast Can Wait" sounds like a good song that got left off of "New Power Soul.")

Send mail to 3rdeyegirl@gmail.com.

I did.

706e6b80be99afd3f65595ba6ffaac88e12c7953

funkaholic1972 said:

This just completely baffles me! Who wouldn't want their stuff in the best possible quality???

I do agree that the releases should be made available in the best quality and for digital download, that is lossless. From the lossless format one is free to convert it into their preferred lossy format for whatever reason, whether that is personal taste or save memory.

That is not possible going the other way, technically it can be done but there is no improvement in quality, just an increase in memory occupation. It always made me chuckle that people were looking for flac of the NPGMC releases.

And for people like I me that have got shot ears, all things being relative I figure the higher the quality the less noise my ears will hear.

udo said:

Send mail to 3rdeyegirl@gmail.com.

I did.

Me too.