So which albums made by Prince have the wirst most dated keyboard sounds?

i would say

The Gold EXp album

and Lovesexy.

i dont know which synth Prince used on Pussy Control but it

sounds much more dated than any synth sound a decade b4.

Lovesexy album fulll of crappy roland d 50 presets.

starting around 1985 gone was Prince the great synth programmer

and new presets guy stepped in.

Mosty 1980s albums have dated keyboards e.g. the keyboard can be dated to that decade.

The Gold Experience isn't really a keyboard led album, I'm not that keen on Pussy Control thou

Prince loved some cheesy synths and keys sounds and, as much as I love Gold Experience, I must admit the keys are very dated. Dont know if it was Ricky Peterson´s fault, but...

Yes many people have lamented that he used the raw presets for sounds for many recordings. I've often wondered if his monitoring siutation made it sound artificially better as he was recording.

Risking crossing the subjective fine line between period piece/vintage keyboard sound and indulgently tasteless, to varying degrees:

.

V6

Romance 1600

Madhouse 8

LS

Martika's Kitchen

TGE

Emancipation

.

[Edited 11/20/17 8:40am]

coldasice said:

Gold...I honestly can't believe he put that organ so up in the mix even back then

I'd have to disagree. A B3 is a classic sound and shows up in R&B, rock, soul, etc. For the 90s, at a time when that hollow sound was still present in some music and grunge was taking over and just a lot of weird bad ideas in music, for Prince to make these hard R&B albums or a rock album and throw in something like a Hammond organ was a fresh idea. Using an organ wasn't a new idea, but in the muck of the 90s, it came across pretty nice. I think TGE has aged really well.


I think Romance 1600 is the one that really sounds dated. It's so bizarre, hollow, and a lot of it sounds like a demo. Even "Last Heart" sounds better next to anything on it.

I prefer keyboard sounds that are "dated" to the 80s and even the 90s to those that are "dated" to sound like anything from the last 15 years or so.

djThunderfunk said:

I prefer keyboard sounds that are "dated" to the 80s and even the 90s to those that are "dated" to sound like anything from the last 15 years or so.

High motherfucking five on that one. Production today is just horrible in slightly more cases than not.

djThunderfunk said:

I prefer keyboard sounds that are "dated" to the 80s and even the 90s to those that are "dated" to sound like anything from the last 15 years or so.

Yeah.

Like when it was MUSIC.

Thank you TrivialPursuit and laytonian. I knew I wasn't alone on this.

TrivialPursuit said:

... in slightly more cases than not.

this is an interesting grammatical creation.

I think it means 'almost never'

laytonian said:

djThunderfunk said:

I prefer keyboard sounds that are "dated" to the 80s and even the 90s to those that are "dated" to sound like anything from the last 15 years or so.

Yeah.

Like when it was MUSIC.

u wanna say u dig analog synths much more than digital

Some of the sounds on D&P are pretty bad. The electric piano sound used on "Strollin'" and the organ sounds used on several tracks from that period, like "Daddy Pop" are horrible (it's all coming from romplers, I assume). Tracks like "Diamonds & Pearls" and "Insatiable" on it still sound okay to me, however. I think much of the same gear was used still on the Symbol Album, but I think the album might have just been mixed in a manner that makes the keyboard sounds work better.

I don't think TGE has aged that badly. At least the synth sounds fit the rather aggressive sounding mixes.

I like TRC a lot, and the real rhodes used on it sounds nice, but some of the rompler stuff could have been easily left out from it. The same goes for NEWS and Xpectation. He must have aimed for Headhunters / Weather Report type of an overall sound with those records, but really, he should have left out the rompler stuff. There were some ethnic type of sounds used on NEWS that I thought sounded okay, though.

I have nothing against the 80s albums that utilized mainly digital synthesis (he switched to using mainly digital already on ATWIAD). On "Batman" it is starting to get a bit iffy, but there's still some brilliant sampler stuff on it (the keyboard parts come off pretty damn funky in overall). The GB album sounds okay to me too.

[Edited 11/21/17 7:13am]

I vote Emancipation to have the most dated sounds.

[Edited 11/21/17 10:16am]

KAB said:

TrivialPursuit said:

The Gold Experience is just fine the way it is.

so what did he use on Romance 1600? was it oberheim or yamaha dx7 or combination ?

i find that sounds Prince used in the 90s ,late 80s dated much

more than his early 80 analog synth.

Prince was great with his use of Oberheim synthisizers .

He stoped carring about programing interesting synth

sounds after 1985

and became roland d 50 presets guy.

never been the same.

p.s. you know what is interesting

even thought Emancipation have a lot of cheesy 90s new age synth he did use Oberheim synths on that album a lot.

and he used moog for bass sounds on Somebodys Somebody,Right Back Here I n mY aRMS

Cthulhu said:

I think the airhorn on Art official cage was dated years before that song was produced.

I think Art Official Cage is purposefully filled with "current/trendy (artificial) sounds. I like it as the opening song to the concept album of him waking up after years to this new world filled with all kind of fakeness.

To me the biting lyrics and the music play against each and somhow in all this "noise" it works as a statement.

I read that he really just used a lot of presets on the Oberheims in the early 80s.

They still sound the best!

Ronnie talk 2 Russia - Is that a 1978 Casio Bontempi playing on that thing - that organ sounds tinny, some of the organs on DM and Controversy are very tinny sounding (Not the PolyMoogs or Clavinovas on his 70s albums though).

.

The arrival of Linn, put that all to played - Prince did not let go of his Drum machines until the early 1990s.

.

I agree some of the organ work from D and P to Emancipation is badly dated. The songs - Human Body and New World are dreadful, like 1992 Haddaway style synthesiser workouts. If you want real shitty organ work - both of the Vengaboys albums (1999 and 2000 millenium) are half just wordless synthesiser workouts.

GaryMF said:

I read that he really just used a lot of presets on the Oberheims in the early 80s.

They still sound the best!

yes i agree they still sound the best

i have oberheim matrix 6

anyway does The Beautiful Ones porta slides or fast modulation on Delirious sounds like preset?

he did program a lot b4 1985

Adorecream said:

Ronnie talk 2 Russia - Is that a 1978 Casio Bontempi playing on that thing - that organ sounds tinny, some of the organs on DM and Controversy are very tinny sounding (Not the PolyMoogs or Clavinovas on his 70s albums though).

.

The arrival of Linn, put that all to played - Prince did not let go of his Drum machines until the early 1990s.

.

I agree some of the organ work from D and P to Emancipation is badly dated. The songs - Human Body and New World are dreadful, like 1992 Haddaway style synthesiser workouts. If you want real shitty organ work - both of the Vengaboys albums (1999 and 2000 millenium) are half just wordless synthesiser workouts.

Ronnie organ sound is coming from the oberheim synths.Dm organ

sounds are oberheim also.

I dont think that organ from Gold and Emancipation is dated

.he used real hammond there.but i do have problem with the synths

used on both albums

Just a song, not an album, but I remember thinking the 'string stabs' on 'It' even sounded dated in 1987

JohnCragg said:

Just a song, not an album, but I remember thinking the 'string stabs' on 'It' even sounded dated in 1987

It was the type of sampler stuff that had been "hot" several years ago already. I was too young to have any such impressions at the time myself, but you're probably "right".

novabrkr said:

JohnCragg said:

Just a song, not an album, but I remember thinking the 'string stabs' on 'It' even sounded dated in 1987

It was the type of sampler stuff that had been "hot" several years ago already. I was too young to have any such impressions at the time myself, but you're probably "right".

fairlight sampler?

thebanishedone said:

So which albums made by Prince have the wirst most dated keyboard sounds?

i would say

The Gold EXp album

and Lovesexy.

i dont know which synth Prince used on Pussy Control but it

sounds much more dated than any synth sound a decade b4.

Lovesexy album fulll of crappy roland d 50 presets.

starting around 1985 gone was Prince the great synth programmer

and new presets guy stepped in.

Yep pretty much. Some chunks of Batman and Graffiti Bridge too.