I'm enjoying PR Deluxe and all but the more I reaearch the more I realize the Vault disc is totally haphazard and partially random. Does WB really have access to the vault? I have my doubts. There is but a handful of actual Purple Rain outtakes here. And then questionable versions. How the heck could they choose the solo "Dance Electric" over the fuller one with W&L for example?

homesquid said:

I'm enjoying PR Deluxe and all but the more I reaearch the more I realize the Vault disc is totally haphazard and partially random. Does WB really have access to the vault? I have my doubts. There is but a handful of actual Purple Rain outtakes here. And then questionable versions. How the heck could they choose the solo "Dance Electric" over the fuller one with W&L for example?

I thought they picked that version of Dance Electric because that version was the one created during Purple Rain era. The fuller version was done significantly later.

The way I understand it (and this is somewhat confirmed by liner notes and interviews) is that WB selected the tracks they wanted to include, and were then given permission by the estate to pull those tracks from the vault.

antonb said:

It's my understanding that Warner's already had these tracks in there own storage place. They haven't come from Paisley park.According to Funkenberry anyhow.

That's correct. Whatever Prince submitted to WB for each album during his years with them is what they have access to. Songs that we have as boots, WB may not actually have and they would have to get special permission from the estate to release those songs.

They don't have the access to the vault in Paisley Park.

The Purple Rain remaster is what Prince initially submitted them and they refused to release it as such without the outtakes. Now they've chosen to release what they've got: the Joshua Welton engineered remaster of PR despite its flaws and the outtakes they could put together from their own sources (and possibly a few of them lifted directly from releases by bootleg labels that were deemed "good enough" for the purpose).

If they had access to the original tapes in Paisley Park the release would have obviously been of higher quality throughout.

rdhull said:

homesquid said:

I'm enjoying PR Deluxe and all but the more I reaearch the more I realize the Vault disc is totally haphazard and partially random. Does WB really have access to the vault? I have my doubts. There is but a handful of actual Purple Rain outtakes here. And then questionable versions. How the heck could they choose the solo "Dance Electric" over the fuller one with W&L for example?

I thought they picked that version of Dance Electric because that version was the one created during Purple Rain era. The fuller version was done significantly later.

The version with W&L and guitar solo was donme in 1985 during the PR Tour, right? So technically still during the PR era.

rdhull said:

homesquid said:

I'm enjoying PR Deluxe and all but the more I reaearch the more I realize the Vault disc is totally haphazard and partially random. Does WB really have access to the vault? I have my doubts. There is but a handful of actual Purple Rain outtakes here. And then questionable versions. How the heck could they choose the solo "Dance Electric" over the fuller one with W&L for example?

I thought they picked that version of Dance Electric because that version was the one created during Purple Rain era. The fuller version was done significantly later.

I'm still trying to get into this version of Posessed. It sounds completely unfinished. Like he had the initial idea, put it down and then left it aside until later. A perfect example of this is about 4:15 where Pince sings, "If you relate to the feeling, let me hear you say yeah". There's an approximately 100% chance that there should be a callback shout of, "yeah", after that. Shortly after he sings, "If you relate to the groove, let me hear you say oooh", and there's a little ooh after that, which makes the lack of the yeah response even stranger.

It's not just the vocals either, this is definitely a few instrumental tracks away from being something Prince would have released, imo of course but nobody will convince me that this track is not unfinished.

But then again, if this was on Purple Rain and When Doves Cry was on this outtake disc I'd probably be saying that was unfinished too. So maybe there is a small chance I oculd be convinced

Listening to this brings to mind the bootlegged early version of Diamonds & Pearls. Where the songs are there but they are several production flourishes away from what was released. There's just something empty about Posessed for me on this release.

I got to the end of writing this response to your comments about The Dance Electric, then realised I was blabbering on about Posessed instead, but I'd even written Dance Electric so I had to go back and change it before hitting post response.

As for Dance Electric, yeah I agree with that too but at least it sounds finished, unlike Possessed .

They don't.

I asked Londell when we had dinner whether the vault had been properly catalogued and appraised and he indicated that rough evaluations had been done but not specific ones.

I also know someone in Minneapolis who is very trustworthy who said that there are companies still fighting for the contract regarding digitisation of all the data.

novabrkr said:

They don't have the access to the vault in Paisley Park.

The Purple Rain remaster is what Prince initially submitted them and they refused to release it as such without the outtakes. Now they've chosen to release what they've got: the Joshua Welton engineered remaster of PR despite its flaws and the outtakes they could put together from their own sources (and possibly a few of them lifted directly from releases by bootleg labels that were deemed "good enough" for the purpose).

If they had access to the original tapes in Paisley Park the release would have obviously been of higher quality throughout.

I just want it to be clear that most of the above is speculation, based on people's assumptions on what "Prince would/would not do". No offense, but it is not logical at all.

WB does not have access to the vaults. The estate is still being settled. Nor does WB have a "vault" of their own unreleased Prince material because that is not how it works. Prince was not a "work for hire" musician. Is it possible that WB has tape copies of early configurations of albums that Prince submitted for approval? Absolutely. But they would not have the legal authority to release them unless Prince gave it to them before he died. That's right..... Prince would have had to approve them even if they had possession of them. But do any of you really think Prince submitted Velvet Kitty Kat or Katrina's Paper Dolls, yet alone Love & Sex, in an album configuration to WB?

Most of people's belief that "Prince didn't approve this" centers on either his current religious beliefs or the sound quality of the releases. Yet he did approve, and was involved in, the remaster of one of his most well known, if not THE most definitive "dirty" Prince song (Darling Nikki) for this release, so why wouldn't he approve We Can Fuck? Not to mention that anyone that has been around on this board for numerous years knew well before this release that people in the know stated P still hadn't digitized the vault well into the 2000's, and tape deterioriates.

Prince never stopped being sexual. He may have stopped cursing and being overtly "dirty", but he still wrote songs about sex and fucking (Turn Me Loose being a good example.) He didn't deny or disown his past..... he just didn't live in it. Like most adults he simply said "I was young, that was then, this is now".

[Edited 6/26/17 6:43am]

From the actual audio quality of what we have on the From The Vault disc, Electric Intercourse is the only one that sounds like a master or from a copy tape.

From reading this article, I think it'll be a good few years until we'll see anything released that actually comes from the Paisley Park vault...

https://www.nytimes.com/2...vault.html

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

novabrkr said:

They don't have the access to the vault in Paisley Park.

The Purple Rain remaster is what Prince initially submitted them and they refused to release it as such without the outtakes. Now they've chosen to release what they've got: the Joshua Welton engineered remaster of PR despite its flaws and the outtakes they could put together from their own sources (and possibly a few of them lifted directly from releases by bootleg labels that were deemed "good enough" for the purpose).

If they had access to the original tapes in Paisley Park the release would have obviously been of higher quality throughout.

I just want it to be clear that most of the above is speculation, based on people's assumptions on what "Prince would/would not do". No offense, but it is not logical at all.

WB does not have access to the vaults. The estate is still being settled. Nor does WB have a "vault" of their own unreleased Prince material because that is not how it works. Prince was not a "work for hire" musician. Is it possible that WB has tape copies of early configurations of albums that Prince submitted for approval? Absolutely. But they would not have the legal authority to release them unless Prince gave it to them before he died. That's right..... Prince would have had to approve them even if they had possession of them. But do any of you really think Prince submitted Velvet Kitty Kat or Katrina's Paper Dolls, yet alone Love & Sex, in an album configuration to WB?

Most of people's belief that "Prince didn't approve this" centers on either his current religious beliefs or the sound quality of the releases. Yet he did approve, and was involved in, the remaster of one of his most well known, if not THE most definitive "dirty" Prince song (Darling Nikki) for this release, so why wouldn't he approve We Can Fuck? Not to mention that anyone that has been around on this board for numerous years knew well before this release that people in the know stated P still hadn't digitized the vault well into the 2000's, and tape deterioriates.

Prince never stopped being sexual. He may have stopped cursing and being overtly "dirty", but he still wrote songs about sex and fucking (Turn Me Loose being a good example.) He didn't deny or disown his past..... he just didn't live in it. Like most adults he simply said "I was young, that was then, this is now".

[Edited 6/26/17 6:43am]

I'm sorry, your own post is full of speculation and illogical argumentation.

Are you seriously trying to argue that in order for Warner Bros. records to have obtained the outtakes earlier Prince would have needed to submit them as parts of album configurations? No other potential scenario crossed your mind? What about showcasing material that other artists might want to record? Potential B-sides? Simply showing what he's been putting the money the company gave him into when they've asked about it?

Not that my post even contained the argument that it must have been Prince himself that submitted the material to the company. They could have simply gotten them from former associates Prince gave tapes to, from the elite circle of bootleg collectors or any other source. The "worst case scenario" being that a few of them were taken from already circulating bootleg releases (i.e. tracks like "Velvet Kitty Cat" and "Wonderful Ass") . We don't know for sure yet.

We neither know the details how WB was allowed to release the master and the outtakes now. If any details of the deal between the record company and the estate have been posted here, well, they've escaped me. You'll have to fill me in about the details if you know more about them like you give an impression of, but it's unlikely that WB got the permission from Prince to release the outtakes. Otherwise they would have released them when he was alive, no?

Your argument on "Darling Nikki" being on the Purple Rain album somehow proving that Prince would have submitted "We Can Fuck" himself for WB is very weak. We know that Prince simply detested the use of curse words during the last two decades of his life. Not that I'm really interested in debunking that part of your post, as from the logical point of view, the connection you attempt to establish between profanity and bad sound quality just doesn't work.

And for the umpteenth time, there's a big difference between what sound quality deterioration due to incorrect storing of tapes and sound quality deterioration due to repeated tape transfers sounds like. Just because a recording sounds bad doesn't mean that just about any procedure could have resulted in the way it sounds. You can't fall back on that nonsense in an attempt to explain just about everything.

novabrkr said:

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

I just want it to be clear that most of the above is speculation, based on people's assumptions on what "Prince would/would not do". No offense, but it is not logical at all.

WB does not have access to the vaults. The estate is still being settled. Nor does WB have a "vault" of their own unreleased Prince material because that is not how it works. Prince was not a "work for hire" musician. Is it possible that WB has tape copies of early configurations of albums that Prince submitted for approval? Absolutely. But they would not have the legal authority to release them unless Prince gave it to them before he died. That's right..... Prince would have had to approve them even if they had possession of them. But do any of you really think Prince submitted Velvet Kitty Kat or Katrina's Paper Dolls, yet alone Love & Sex, in an album configuration to WB?

Most of people's belief that "Prince didn't approve this" centers on either his current religious beliefs or the sound quality of the releases. Yet he did approve, and was involved in, the remaster of one of his most well known, if not THE most definitive "dirty" Prince song (Darling Nikki) for this release, so why wouldn't he approve We Can Fuck? Not to mention that anyone that has been around on this board for numerous years knew well before this release that people in the know stated P still hadn't digitized the vault well into the 2000's, and tape deterioriates.

Prince never stopped being sexual. He may have stopped cursing and being overtly "dirty", but he still wrote songs about sex and fucking (Turn Me Loose being a good example.) He didn't deny or disown his past..... he just didn't live in it. Like most adults he simply said "I was young, that was then, this is now".

[Edited 6/26/17 6:43am]

I'm sorry, your own post is full of speculation and illogical argumentation.

Are you seriously trying to argue that in order for Warner Bros. records to have obtained the outtakes earlier Prince would have needed to submit them as parts of album configurations? No other potential scenario crossed your mind? What about showcasing material that other artists might want to record? Potential B-sides? Simply showing what he's been putting the money the company gave him into when they've asked about it?

Not that my post even contained the argument that it must have been Prince himself that submitted the material to the company. They could have simply gotten them from former associates Prince gave tapes to, from the elite circle of bootleg collectors or any other source. The "worst case scenario" being that a few of them were taken from already circulating bootleg releases (i.e. tracks like "Velvet Kitty Cat" and "Wonderful Ass") . We don't know for sure yet.

We neither know the details how WB was allowed to release the master and the outtakes now. If any details of the deal between the record company and the estate have been posted here, well, they've escaped me. You'll have to fill me in about the details if you know more about them like you give an impression of, but it's unlikely that WB got the permission from Prince to release the outtakes. Otherwise they would have released them when he was alive, no?

Your argument on "Darling Nikki" being on the Purple Rain album somehow proving that Prince would have submitted "We Can Fuck" himself for WB is very weak. We know that Prince simply detested the use of curse words during the last two decades of his life. Not that I'm really interested in debunking that part of your post, as from the logical point of view, the connection you attempt to establish between profanity and bad sound quality just doesn't work.

And for the umpteenth time, there's a big difference between what sound quality deterioration due to incorrect storing of tapes and sound quality deterioration due to repeated tape transfers sounds like. Just because a recording sounds bad doesn't mean that just about any procedure could have resulted in the way it sounds. You can't fall back on that nonsense in an attempt to explain just about everything.

First: Yes, other scenarios have entered my mind. But in all of them, including the ones you mentioned, WB still would not have the right to release them without Prince's permission. The only thing WB has the rights to are albums/singles with masters, because they own (or soon to be owned) the masters. They do not and did not have the rights to unreleased songs, whether or not the have physical copies in their possession, without Prince's permission.

WB made a deal with Prince in 2014 to release Purple Rain deluxe and outtakes. Do we know the exact wording of the contract? No. But we do know that deal was made.

I know the difference between tape deterioation and high gen tape copies. But have you ever thought that the reason why a high-gen tape was used is because the original ones either don't exist, can't be found or are deteriorated? No, because you are so convinced that Prince would NEVER approve these songs.

[Edited 6/26/17 8:38am]

The amount of people who make stuff up on this forum and present it as undisputed fact is immense. If WB were illegally bootlegging songs do you not think the estate would be all over it? Do you not think that WB understands the law and has lawyers on retainer? Do you think the booklet would thank Prince's heirs for their help in putting together the album if that didn't happen?

.

If you believe that crap then by all means, fire an e-mail off to the heirs because it must have passed them by that WB just released a new Purple Rain set.

embmmusic said:

The amount of people who make stuff up on this forum and present it as undisputed fact is immense. If WB were illegally bootlegging songs do you not think the estate would be all over it? Do you not think that WB understands the law and has lawyers on retainer? Do you think the booklet would thank Prince's heirs for their help in putting together the album if that didn't happen?

.

If you believe that crap then by all means, fire an e-mail off to the heirs because it must have passed them by that WB just released a new Purple Rain set.

You are conflating two completely different things here.

Warners has the RIGHTS to release this songs. Therefore it's not illegal bootlegging.

HOWEVER, it seems pretty clear - and has been suggested by people who know what they are talking about - that they don't have physical access to the master recordings for some of these songs. What they do have is mixdowns. Without working from the physical multi-tracked masters there's only so much remastering you can to do to clean them up. It's also possible some of the multitracks reels are lost or damaged, and the mixdown is all that can be found. Manuela told me in person, when we had lunch together earlier this year, that there were occasions when Prince requested a tape reel of a very old song to be brought up from the vault, and they'd open it up and it would be incredibly degraded and damaged. Obviously, that's more likely to be the case with older material.


So just because you legally have the right to do something doesn't necessarily mean you're working from an original and pristine source.

Its obvious WB did a botch job and did the remaster based on stuff they had already had for a while or mixdowns/samples Prince directly gave to them when he first started the project with them....but then later abandoned.

Ask yourself these questions....

1) Is this the same package that Prince presented to Warner Bros?

2) Would Prince really have submitted a track like We Can Fuck, for example?

3) Would Prince really have

submitted tracks that don’t really have much to do with the Purple Rain era, and in some cases were recorded far later?

4) Would Prince really have neglected to include the long-awaited extended version of 17 Days, which doesn’t appear on here?

5) Are these tracks from the real vault masters or from mixdown tapes that WB have been sitting on for years, because they don’t have access to the vault?

The above is taken from https://thevioletreality....d498526c8b

As for Joshua Weldon remaster of the album we know that it was done with supervision from Prince himself while he was alive...but that does not nescessarly mean Prince was 100% happy or signed off Joshua's work for release before he died. Only Joshua knows the story and answer to that one.

Personally I think the whole project is a sham and just grateful for the fact I have had the privilege to hear some of the tracks on CD2 regardless of whether Prince wanted us to or not.

Militant said

HOWEVER, it seems pretty clear - and has been suggested by people who know what they are talking about - that they don't have physical access to the master recordings for some of these songs. What they do have is mixdowns. Without working from the physical multi-tracked masters there's only so much remastering you can to do to clean them up. It's also possible some of the multitracks reels are lost or damaged, and the mixdown is all that can be found. Manuela told me in person, when we had lunch together earlier this year, that there were occasions when Prince requested a tape reel of a very old song to be brought up from the vault, and they'd open it up and it would be incredibly degraded and damaged. Obviously, that's more likely to be the case with older material.

Except a multi track tape isn't referred to as a master if I'm going to be pedantic - what's on that tape hasn't been mixed so it's not finished.

A master is a "final" mix of that multi track onto a new tape, and would/should be marked as such. The sources for the From The Vault may even be rough mixdowns, if not copies of the master with generation loss.

[Edited 6/26/17 15:15pm]

[Edited 6/26/17 15:15pm]

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

novabrkr said:

They don't have the access to the vault in Paisley Park.

The Purple Rain remaster is what Prince initially submitted them and they refused to release it as such without the outtakes. Now they've chosen to release what they've got: the Joshua Welton engineered remaster of PR despite its flaws and the outtakes they could put together from their own sources (and possibly a few of them lifted directly from releases by bootleg labels that were deemed "good enough" for the purpose).

If they had access to the original tapes in Paisley Park the release would have obviously been of higher quality throughout.

I just want it to be clear that most of the above is speculation, based on people's assumptions on what "Prince would/would not do". No offense, but it is not logical at all.

WB does not have access to the vaults. The estate is still being settled. Nor does WB have a "vault" of their own unreleased Prince material because that is not how it works. Prince was not a "work for hire" musician. Is it possible that WB has tape copies of early configurations of albums that Prince submitted for approval? Absolutely. But they would not have the legal authority to release them unless Prince gave it to them before he died. That's right..... Prince would have had to approve them even if they had possession of them. But do any of you really think Prince submitted Velvet Kitty Kat or Katrina's Paper Dolls, yet alone Love & Sex, in an album configuration to WB?

Most of people's belief that "Prince didn't approve this" centers on either his current religious beliefs or the sound quality of the releases. Yet he did approve, and was involved in, the remaster of one of his most well known, if not THE most definitive "dirty" Prince song (Darling Nikki) for this release, so why wouldn't he approve We Can Fuck? Not to mention that anyone that has been around on this board for numerous years knew well before this release that people in the know stated P still hadn't digitized the vault well into the 2000's, and tape deterioriates.

Prince never stopped being sexual. He may have stopped cursing and being overtly "dirty", but he still wrote songs about sex and fucking (Turn Me Loose being a good example.) He didn't deny or disown his past..... he just didn't live in it. Like most adults he simply said "I was young, that was then, this is now".

[Edited 6/26/17 6:43am]

Darling Nikki is a looooong way from We Can Fuck.

[Edited 6/26/17 15:31pm]

Militant said:

embmmusic said:

The amount of people who make stuff up on this forum and present it as undisputed fact is immense. If WB were illegally bootlegging songs do you not think the estate would be all over it? Do you not think that WB understands the law and has lawyers on retainer? Do you think the booklet would thank Prince's heirs for their help in putting together the album if that didn't happen?

.

If you believe that crap then by all means, fire an e-mail off to the heirs because it must have passed them by that WB just released a new Purple Rain set.

You are conflating two completely different things here.

Warners has the RIGHTS to release this songs. Therefore it's not illegal bootlegging.

HOWEVER, it seems pretty clear - and has been suggested by people who know what they are talking about - that they don't have physical access to the master recordings for some of these songs. What they do have is mixdowns. Without working from the physical multi-tracked masters there's only so much remastering you can to do to clean them up. It's also possible some of the multitracks reels are lost or damaged, and the mixdown is all that can be found. Manuela told me in person, when we had lunch together earlier this year, that there were occasions when Prince requested a tape reel of a very old song to be brought up from the vault, and they'd open it up and it would be incredibly degraded and damaged. Obviously, that's more likely to be the case with older material.


So just because you legally have the right to do something doesn't necessarily mean you're working from an original and pristine source.

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

maceoparker007 said:

jaawwnn said:

You may never hear anything from Prince’s vault of unreleased music

The fate of musical icon's unreleased songs is less than clear

http://www.salon.com/2017/06/26/prince-vault-unreleased-music/

maceoparker007 said:

As for Joshua Weldon remaster of the album we know that it was done with supervision from Prince himself while he was alive...but that does not nescessarly mean Prince was 100% happy or signed off Joshua's work for release before he died. Only Joshua knows the story and answer to that one.

Personally I think the whole project is a sham and just grateful for the fact I have had the privilege to hear some of the tracks on CD2 regardless of whether Prince wanted us to or not.

[Edited 6/26/17 14:30pm]

Didn't Prince himself deliver the remaster to WB but WB wasn't releasing it without extras?

So I think it safe to say that this remaster is indeed the finished thing.

joyinrepetition said:

antonb said:

It's my understanding that Warner's already had these tracks in there own storage place. They haven't come from Paisley park.According to Funkenberry anyhow.

That's correct. Whatever Prince submitted to WB for each album during his years with them is what they have access to. Songs that we have as boots, WB may not actually have and they would have to get special permission from the estate to release those songs.

That is very interesting. In other words, it means he approved of tracks like WCF and Wonderful Ass being released. Both of these tracks are excellent, so it doesn't surprise me that they met Prince's artistic standards for what he was willing to release. What does surprise me is that he would approve of the release of a song as sexually explicit as WCF being released. Even though he appeared to be a bit more relaxed about his JW convictions in recent years, his music was still far more family friendly in the 2010s than it was in the 1980s.

rogifan said:

maceoparker007 said:

Its obvious WB did a botch job and did the remaster based on stuff they had already had for a while or mixdowns/samples Prince directly gave to them when he first started the project with them....but then later abandoned.

Ask yourself these questions....

1) Is this the same package that Prince presented to Warner Bros?

2) Would Prince really have submitted a track like We Can Fuck, for example?

3) Would Prince really have submitted tracks that don’t really have much to do with the Purple Rain era, and in some cases were recorded far later?

4) Would Prince really have neglected to include the long-awaited extended version of 17 Days, which doesn’t appear on here?

5) Are these tracks from the real vault masters or from mixdown tapes that WB have been sitting on for years, because they don’t have access to the vault?

As for Joshua Weldon remaster of the album we know that it was done with supervision from Prince himself while he was alive...but that does not nescessarly mean Prince was 100% happy or signed off Joshua's work for release before he died. Only Joshua knows the story and answer to that one.

Personally I think the whole project is a sham and just grateful for the fact I have had the privilege to hear some of the tracks on CD2 regardless of whether Prince wanted us to or not.

[Edited 6/26/17 14:30pm]

Yes we do know that Prince signed off on the final product. He tweeted so. But I do agree he never would have signed off on WCF or WA. But I’m sure some fans are glad WB included them anyway. [Edited 6/26/17 16:53pm] [Edited 6/26/17 16:55pm]

There's no doubt that Prince signed off on the 2015 Paisley Park remaster of Purple Rain, none at all. There is great doubt that he signed off on the disk of unreleased material though. Prince is blaming Warners here because he delivered the PP remaster and they won't release it. What's more likely though, is that they were expecting unreleased material and Prince wouldn't give it to them. We know how Prince was about people getting a piece of the purple pie. If he didn't get enough cash he wouldn't be offering up the unreleased stuff. But he's handed over the remaster so in his mind it was all up to them now.

jjam said:

From the actual audio quality of what we have on the From The Vault disc, Electric Intercourse is the only one that sounds like a master or from a copy tape.

From reading this article, I think it'll be a good few years until we'll see anything released that actually comes from the Paisley Park vault...

https://www.nytimes.com/2...vault.html

The quality of Electric Intercourse and the fact he performed it (albiet omitting the word Intercourse) shortly after WB's PR announcement in 2014 I think there's a good chance he may have given them that as part of the deal.

.

As for the rest...I'd put my house on him not giving them the likes of We Can Fuck and Wonderful Ass