rdhull said:

ForceofNature said:

jstar69 said:

Great quality, some peeps are never happy!!! No complaints here... [Edited 5/11/17 22:34pm]

I am happy and have been jamming to OD/RG all day, but its like some people here cannot be told that something isn't 100 percent perfect in terms of audio fidelity otherwise they freak out lol. I can be happy and comment on the fidelity at the same time

jstar69 said:

I think they sound better than what had been circulating, but I can certainly hear issues in both. I do hope that the liner notes give an indication of the sources.

Simply put--I'm back to listening to "Night Before The Reign" and not believing that I'm not waiting to go to the next concert...

The sound quality of those tracks from WB is poor (from Moonbeam Levels to Roadhouse Garden). I was waiting for something similar Prince did for Crystal Ball, but it seems WB can not do the same. However, I am happy to hear those tracks at the best possible quality, at this time.

jstar69 said:

Streaming on Apple Music. Sound is excellent. Lisa on OD - great, as I'm guessing this was the finished product prince wanted released. Prince on RG - great, same as leak from a while back. I was hoping the next track avail would be TDE - oh well😜 [Edited 5/11/17 14:10pm]

Thanks for sharing. We must admit that the leaked version had also a very good sound.

fabriziovenerandi said:

The sound quality of those tracks from WB is poor (from Moonbeam Levels to Roadhouse Garden). I was waiting for something similar Prince did for Crystal Ball, but it seems WB can not do the same. However, I am happy to hear those tracks at the best possible quality, at this time.

They must be pulling from multiple sources, because Electric Intercourse in terms of sheer fidelity is lightyears ahead of Roadhouse Garden. Its still an enjoyable listen, however I can't pretend like the transients and weird warbled high end in OD doesn't exist

i will put this on my phone and listen with earphones in the morning

ForceofNature said:

fabriziovenerandi said:

The sound quality of those tracks from WB is poor (from Moonbeam Levels to Roadhouse Garden). I was waiting for something similar Prince did for Crystal Ball, but it seems WB can not do the same. However, I am happy to hear those tracks at the best possible quality, at this time.

They must be pulling from multiple sources, because Electric Intercourse in terms of sheer fidelity is lightyears ahead of Roadhouse Garden. Its still an enjoyable listen, however I can't pretend like the transients and weird warbled high end in OD doesn't exist

Yes. I fear the access to the Vault in the next years could be less peaceful than what was hoped. That's why I'm happy that there's the policy of releasing a whole new cd this year. Anyway, it feels more like we are going to listen a very good bootleg than a ufficial hi-fi release...

Jeez, the quality of Our Destiny really is horrible. Sounds like overcompensation for the lack of high-end on a damaged (or badly recorded) tape.

The Roadhouse Garden part is OK. But [the sound quality of] Lisa's vocals on Our Destiny is killing my ears.

.

[Edited 5/12/17 1:09am]

bluegangsta said:

SchlomoThaHomo said:

Listening to it on a proper system and I think the quality is kinda shit. It's better than what we had circulating, but not good enough for release imo. The cymbal crashes/chord stabs during Our Destiny are so muddy.

The cymbals are almost unbearable. They sound more like noise reduction artifacts than they do an instrument. There also seems to be several very small drop-outs that were apparent on the bootleg version.

[Edited 5/11/17 18:09pm]

.
Yes. Glad to see someone here have ears...

Our Destiny is clearly from a different tape source than Roadhouse Garden. Our Destiny has drop-outs constantly, from start to finish, but only on the top end, and that's clearly a sign of worn tape. They should've gone back to the multitrack for this one, instead of overcompensating for the lack of top end.

Roadhouse Garden is also lacking in the top end, but at least it's smooth, no harsh peaks there.

It'd be interesting to know whether it was Prince who edited the two songs into one years ago, using a worn master tape for Our Destiny, or if the edit was recreated now by WB. (I think it's more likely that it was Prince.)

And for those who suggest "you cannot judge sound quality from an iTunes copy": yes you can. Lossy audio file compression does have its own artifacts of course (iTunes is still better than an equally compressed mp3 though), but those are different artefacts to what you hear here.
Trained ears (and I claim to have a pair of those) can differentiate between different artefacts. The faults we're hearing on Our Destiny are typical of damaged analog tapes and digital overcompensation in the high end of the spectrum. These are not the artefacts of file compression.

TrivialPursuit said:

Romeoblu said:

Very disappointed to hear Lisa is on lead vocals.

I understand the nicer way to say "I wish Prince was on lead" is the purpose here, but we also have to remember Prince oversaw this project, and it's how it was intended back then. We do have that demo that leaked at the first of the year if you want Prince on vocals. It keeps the integrity to have Lisa on it. Prince was in that "let Wendy & Lisa finish it" mode around that time. He was so busy with Under The Cherry Moon that to know his vision and what he allowed anyone else to do is historically important.

We also have to remember that Prince wanted Hannah singing on What If and some of the Plectrumelectrum tracks. Prince didn't always make the right decision.

ForceofNature said:

fabriziovenerandi said:

The sound quality of those tracks from WB is poor (from Moonbeam Levels to Roadhouse Garden). I was waiting for something similar Prince did for Crystal Ball, but it seems WB can not do the same. However, I am happy to hear those tracks at the best possible quality, at this time.

They must be pulling from multiple sources, because Electric Intercourse in terms of sheer fidelity is lightyears ahead of Roadhouse Garden. Its still an enjoyable listen, however I can't pretend like the transients and weird warbled high end in OD doesn't exist

Prince performing Electric Intercourse just after the PR 30th Anniversary announcement from WB makes me think he may have remastered/worked on EI in 2014 and gave them it with the album.

.

I'm no audiophile but it clearly sounds better than Moonbeam Levels and Our Destiny/RG.

Is anyone else thinking that the reason why WB have these songs to release during the whole estate/vault legal fiasco, is that Prince probably gave them mixes in various stages of completion around the time of working PR?

This would explain why they are varying degrees of quality.

We're just seeing cleaned up versions of those rather than them having any access to the vault.

This is not the way to be releasing Prince post-humous stuff. They should really be paying more attention, a la Bob Dylan's bootleg series sets.

[Edited 5/12/17 1:53am]

tbokris said:

Is anyone else thinking that the reason why WB have these songs to release during the whole estate/vault legal fiasco, is that Prince probably gave them mixes in various stages of completion around the time of working PR?

.

Nope.

.

Prince himself didn't care that much about mixing to go back to redoing them. He usually mixed a song right after recording it, or he simply let his engineer do the mix and that was it. So I doubt there'd be many songs with several different mixes, unless years later he pulled out something from the vault to rework and release it.

.

[Edited 5/12/17 1:58am]

coldasice said:

Yes I made the newbie post. It was only due to influx of craziness since P died. For example...these McDonald's questions and stuff of that sort are just silly. This Roadhouse Garden question is totally valid, but "How did Prince smell?"Really. That type of thing is what I was talking about. This forum used to be interesting and about the music. The other thing I notice is a new other will post an article from years ago that we've seen millions of times, however don't annoy anybody & I'm happy to answer any I know the answer to. Anyway I can't wait to hear Roadhouse Garden I was hoping Our Destiny would be the duet version or just P, still cool though. Sorry for sounding drab about new members I'm really not a dick, sorry.

This forum has always had shit like, 'how did Prince smell'. There may be more newbies now, so those sort of things may be suddenly more common but we've always had crap like Prince's feet, http://prince.org/msg/7/29698, has Prince ever dated a fat chick, http://prince.org/msg/7/388000 and thousands of other meaningless threads about nonsense. The place goes down hill once we're a couple of months past a new release and it's a slow news time.

Oh, and let's not forget the classic sand dollar incident, although I couldn't find a link.

Marco81 said:

It'd be nice to have Sifi comment on the quality of the 2 tracks...

Why don't you comment on it?

TheEnglishGent said:

TrivialPursuit said:

I understand the nicer way to say "I wish Prince was on lead" is the purpose here, but we also have to remember Prince oversaw this project, and it's how it was intended back then. We do have that demo that leaked at the first of the year if you want Prince on vocals. It keeps the integrity to have Lisa on it. Prince was in that "let Wendy & Lisa finish it" mode around that time. He was so busy with Under The Cherry Moon that to know his vision and what he allowed anyone else to do is historically important.

We also have to remember that Prince wanted Hannah singing on What If and some of the Plectrumelectrum tracks. Prince didn't always make the right decision.

.
When you're creating art, there isn't really a "right" decision, you're simply following your instincts. And actually I like Lisa's vocals and have no problem with Hannah's either. I very much appreciate how sometimes he could let others (especially women) shine too, instead of thinking "this is my album so I should be the only one singing lead".

BeatofBlackWings said:

rdhull said:

These sound incredible as studio although Im used to the live versions. Both Lisa's and prince's voices are so....creamy?

[Snip - luv4u] This is very clearly in awful quality.

Yes rd, what you putting in your ears?

MiceElfAgin said:

tbokris said:

Is anyone else thinking that the reason why WB have these songs to release during the whole estate/vault legal fiasco, is that Prince probably gave them mixes in various stages of completion around the time of working PR?

.

Nope.

.

Prince himself didn't care that much about mixing to go back to redoing them. He usually mixed a song right after recording it, or he simply let his engineer do the mix and that was it. So I doubt there'd be many songs with several different mixes, unless years later he pulled out something from the vault to rework and release it.

.

[Edited 5/12/17 1:58am]

I agree, he didn't really care too much about mixing. But he made mixes on cassette that he would give out to band members, listen to himself, and give to other people, I'm guessing he gave Warners a cassette of songs he had recorded leading up to the PR project and this is sourced from that.

.

I think it's obvious, this OD/RHG track splice, is not from the vault.

.

Also compare Crystal Ball mixes, from the vault, to this. Yes CB was brickwalled like a motherfucker, but it was all there, with no audible loss, this sounds like it's coming from a cassette with that kind of compression on the treble.

[Edited 5/12/17 2:36am]

[Edited 5/12/17 2:41am]

purplethunder3121 said:

Revolution81 said:

Whoever at warners tacked these two together fucked up. RG segues in WAY too early. We already know from the bootleg leak that Our Destiny continues on a little longer with the synths Which proves that this statement made by Sifi on the locked PR deluxe thread was complete bullshit: "Our Destiny contains Lisa´s vocals / Roadhouse Garden contains Prince´s vocals. Songs go back to back and will be released here as they were done in the studio."

We still can't be certain that this isn't how Prince wanted the track in it's final form. For exanple, if Parade had never been released and we had only heard the single version of Kiss on a bootleg and Warners were now putting out the Parade album for us, we could conclude that it's wrong because Kiss is cut off too early.

I'm not claiming to know what is right or wrong, just that we will now never know for sure.

Skip to 2:52 and start there. Our Destiny is pretty awful. Roadhouse Garden though is really good. No idea why they mashed them together.

tclifton said:

Skip to 2:52 and start there. Our Destiny is pretty awful. Roadhouse Garden though is really good. No idea why they mashed them together.

Agree. Not keen on Lisa's vocal. Rather have them as 2 tracks

They are both awesome, and if there are small audio flaws, it makes them even better, in my view - lovely release, no complaints here.