Well shit, it looks like Josh was involved afterall in the remastering process. Just saw this on twitter.

Remastering this w/ Prince was an amazing experience. We looked forward to this release. Thanks 2 the Estate & @wbr- I hope you all enjoy. 💜

[Edited 6/24/17 12:19pm]

Yep and Bernie did the other discs. His Tweet suggests Prince was ok with his remaster...go figure.

Man I kind of feel sorry for Josh in a way given all the fan opprobium this is going to stir up, from his point of view it must have been the opportunity of a lifetime to work with a legend and to be able to work on the remastering process of such a legendary album. Still I reallly, reallly, really, reallly, wish that he hadn't.

-edit-

[Edited 6/24/17 14:54pm]

leadline said:

Well shit, it looks like Josh was involved afterall in the remastering process.

Well, it does credit Josh in the album notes in the booklet, so we knew that already.

The extended version of "Let's Go Crazy" remastered by Bernie sounds so much better than the Paisley Park remaster. Josh is an amateur!!!

TheVaultKeeper said:

TheVaultKeeper said:

The extended version of "Let's Go Crazy" remastered by Bernie sounds so much better than the Paisley Park remaster. Josh is an amateur!!!

Yep. The closest thing to a properly done remaster of Purple Rain we have currently is the stuff on the third disc.

I'd add a funny emoticon after the above statement, but it's just sad in the end, really.

Sadly, Josh added to the Loudness War in a bad way. He absolutely crushed the dynamics in "Let's Go Crazy". See picture above. Top is New. Bottom is Original. All that black is the dynamics in the song being crushed. So, you can't even tell the guitar solo from the verse. Very poor job. But, he's not a Professional Mastering Engineer. So, I blame Prince for sending a kid to do grown up job.

Proof is in the liner notes dudes. Prince did the remaster himself, Welton was the engineer

[Edited 6/25/17 9:42am]

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

Man I kind of feel sorry for Josh in a way given all the fan opprobium this is going to stir up, from his point of view it must have been the opportunity of a lifetime to work with a legend and to be able to work on the remastering process of such a legendary album. Still I reallly, reallly, really, reallly, wish that he hadn't.

Nah

The only people who will be pissed about this remaster are audiophiles and members of prince.org

Ha, ha. In case anyone had doubts, it looks like Prince's attitude toward remastering "Purple Rain" is illustrated perfectly in the new deluxe package disc--that is to say, disinterest, as he felt it needed no remastering.

>

So what, then, when the record company that stands to publish your new music and insists you allow them access to a remaster of your classic album as a conditional, do you do? You go to your PP engineer and tell him to "brickwall the motha' with max compression, and maybe the young mp3 listeners will enjoy that!"

>

What a character that guy was. For the time being, the audiophiles will have to go back to the orignial Purple Rain to get their kicks.

OrangeClock said:

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

Man I kind of feel sorry for Josh in a way given all the fan opprobium this is going to stir up, from his point of view it must have been the opportunity of a lifetime to work with a legend and to be able to work on the remastering process of such a legendary album. Still I reallly, reallly, really, reallly, wish that he hadn't.

Nah

The only people who will be pissed about this remaster are audiophiles and members of prince.org

Yeah tbf you're probably right, I think us orgers sometimes overestimate the extent to which we represent the fan community as a whole. Still, it does sadden me that the PR remastered suffered this brickwalling, although since I never found that the original Purple Rain CD sounded that bad anyway it's not exactly a huge tragedy for me, I can always just listen to that instead. I hope, however, that when/if it comes to remastering SOTT that they make the effort to do that properly as it's in sore need of a good remaster.

But... hadn't PR already been remastered by Bernie G in 2010? I believe that was released on LP and I remember Prince bragging about how good it sounded in late 2010. Am I trippin'?

Bishop31 said:

Sadly, Josh added to the Loudness War in a bad way. He absolutely crushed the dynamics in "Let's Go Crazy". See picture above. Top is New. Bottom is Original. All that black is the dynamics in the song being crushed. So, you can't even tell the guitar solo from the verse. Very poor job. But, he's not a Professional Mastering Engineer. So, I blame Prince for sending a kid to do grown up job.

Hey Bishop, could you do one of these for Darling Nikki? That's the track (including the outro) that sounded flattened the most, to my ears...

OrangeClock said:

eyewishuheaven said:

Bishop31 said:

Sadly, Josh added to the Loudness War in a bad way. He absolutely crushed the dynamics in "Let's Go Crazy". See picture above. Top is New. Bottom is Original. All that black is the dynamics in the song being crushed. So, you can't even tell the guitar solo from the verse. Very poor job. But, he's not a Professional Mastering Engineer. So, I blame Prince for sending a kid to do grown up job.

Hey Bishop, could you do one of these for Darling Nikki? That's the track (including the outro) that sounded flattened the most, to my ears...

I've heard that, too. I'll do that after my lunch.

OrangeClock said:

Proof is in the liner notes dudes. Prince did the remaster himself, Welton was the engineer

[Edited 6/25/17 9:42am]

Yes, because the liner notes and credits for his albums have always been 100% correct.

dance4me3121 said:

lastdecember said:

And it has been said that this was the last thing Prince worked on

You mean Questlove said this, right? Don't know why he would say that. If this was done in 2015, there's no way he didn't work on something after that.

lastdecember said:

And it has been said that this was the last thing Prince worked on

What about the MonoNeon thing in early 2016?

eyewishuheaven said:

Bishop31 said:

Hey Bishop, could you do one of these for Darling Nikki? That's the track (including the outro) that sounded flattened the most, to my ears...

Here is what he did to "Darling Nikki". Again he crushed the dynamics. A fun comparison you can do is start from 2:14 on the Original and the New Remaster. It's the part where he says 'Whenever you wanna grind...". Listen to how the drums have no impact on the New Remaster. That's because the dynamic range is already clipping. Look at all of that dark area on the Waveform. It's supposed to be peaks and valleys on the waveform. Instead it's just solid black.

bigd74 said:

dodger said:

Phishanga said:

Here's a little chart I made.

Bishop31 said:

eyewishuheaven said:

Hey Bishop, could you do one of these for Darling Nikki? That's the track (including the outro) that sounded flattened the most, to my ears...

Here is what he did to "Darling Nikki". Again he crushed the dynamics. A fun comparison you can do is start from 2:14 on the Original and the New Remaster. It's the part where he says 'Whenever you wanna grind...". Listen to how the drums have no impact on the New Remaster. That's because the dynamic range is already clipping. Look at all of that dark area on the Waveform. It's supposed to be peaks and valleys on the waveform. Instead it's just solid black.

Thank you for this! Yep, it looks just like it sounds - no impact at all when the band comes in between the verses, because it's already blasting. And the backward choir thing at the end is so loud it might as well have a song title!