I was learning Wonderful Ass on guitar today and I realized that the tape may be a tad sped up on the circulating versions of Wonderful Ass that I have. Not by much, it is very subtle but it sounds a bit sharp so decreasing the overall speed by 2 percent with Audacity lines it up more with the conventional concert pitch (A=440).

I am just curious if anyone else has noticed this? It is interesting hearing it "in tune" with concert pitch because hearing it for so long with the original sharp tape speed was something I got really used to! But this change has let me actually learn it with a perfectly in tune guitar haha

For reference I got the song from the Box O' Chocolates set so it is that version in question specifically

[Edited 12/8/16 14:50pm]

coldasice said:

Jeez

What?

coldasice said:

Jeez

I assume you arent a musician??

I think a very large percentage of the outtakes from the 80s play at the wrong speed. It's hard to avoid that when they're from a tape copy of a tape copy of a tape copy...

I don't think the playback speed should be attempted to be corrected by the bootleggers that much either. Small corrections are fine, but if the playback speed on the source material has increased considerably, like on "Extraloveable", slowing it down to "way it should be" isn't going to deliver the optimal results. There's going to be a lot of sonic information missing, especially if the source material also happens to be full of noise, have a flanging effect present on it etc.

Speeding up things usually works better, but it seems to be the case that hardly any of the outtakes have gotten slowed down in the tape duplication process.

This is a very interesting point!.

.

I certainly hope one day we get to hear the vault tracks properly mastered and at the correct speed.

.

novabrkr said:

I think a very large percentage of the outtakes from the 80s play at the wrong speed. It's hard to avoid that when they're from a tape copy of a tape copy of a tape copy...

I don't think the playback speed should be attempted to be corrected by the bootleggers that much either. Small corrections are fine, but if the playback speed on the source material has increased considerably, like on "Extraloveable", slowing it down to "way it should be" isn't going to deliver the optimal results. There's going to be a lot of sonic information missing, especially if the source material also happens to be full of noise, have a flanging effect present on it etc.

Speeding up things usually works better, but it seems to be the case that hardly any of the outtakes have gotten slowed down in the tape duplication process.

That is a good point! I speed corrected Wonderful Ass however that worked because it was only sped up like by a miniscule amount, but it was enough to change the pitch to where it is noticeable

databank said:

I would assume thé Box Of Chocolaté version to bé at thé correct speed, this boot was from à first gen cassette and assemblés with à lot of care.

That is interesting, I do know of famous recordings (Layla for example) that were intentionally transferred sped up. Although in this case I just am not sure if Wonderful Ass is right or not - because it definitely isn't at concert pitch (A=440) including the keyboards/synths which would be unless if Prince intentionally slightly raised the pitch of every single instrument equally - including on the electronic keys.