forgive me for asking as i'm sure this has been discussed multiple times but there is simply
so much information these last few years and i'm somehow still clueless as to who will get
to release post WB material and from what date in the future? 2020? 2021?

is there even a deal in place with sony? or is that only for the reissues we are seeing now,
like Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic etc?

or does sony have an option or something for future releases of as yet unreleased music?

also, when exactly does the warner deal end and what albums (i believe all of them, except
for the soundtracks) then belong to the estate again?

i know some of you will roll your eyes and want to cuss at me, but i just think we would all
benefit from someone who knows their shit (perhaps Bart?) to put the info into a little post
summing up just a few points. so that it would be clear once and for all (of us).

if it's already clear and summed up very simply somewhere, please direct me (again) to it.

thanks for your patience and understanding.

let's not just make this a thread of random speculation or 'i think' or 'i heard perhaps'.

keep it to actual facts about what is known at this point.

also, i am aware that i could perhaps distill this information out of the multiple "estate" threads,
but they are so big and 'cluttered' ahum, cough cough, that it's impossible for me to get to the
relevant information i'm requesting withouth 'packing a lunch and spending a while there'

i guess many of us would like to know plainly what is up, who has which rights and who will be
releasing post WB material in the future. if there is anyone up for it yet, or if there will be new
negotiations in the future etc.

and what happens to all the vault material WB is not releasing now? it reverts back to the estate
after the WB deal is done? (except relevant tracks relating somehow to the soundtracks?)

anybody want to bash my head in yet?

IstenSzek said:

is there even a deal in place with sony? or is that only for the reissues we are seeing now,
like Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic etc?

.

Just read the press release. It's easy to find.

I was under NDA to promote the recent reissues, so I might be able to shed some light based on discussions had. And I will be careful here just so I don't piss anyone off. Some of this is still my speculation based on fragments and my own experience being in the music industry for nearly 20 years. So take this with a grain of salt - I'm not presenting all of this as gospel facts.

I worked on a list of possible ideas around the Emancipation re-release specifically, and during that time, I did raise the subject of outtakes, and questioned whether it'd be possible to include Emancipation era outtakes.

My understanding is that Sony do have the rights, but not the green light from the Estate right now. Archival of what's in the vault is a long process, and as much as we'd all love to have his job, Michael Howe's task is actually quite arduous. For perhaps obvious reasons - including the age of the material and the business need - there is still archival work happening around things that are contained on physical reels. Preservation, etc.

By the time Prince left Warners, we're largely in the digital age. So you're talking files now - not reels. Although, there have stilll been many instances where stuff has been mixed onto tape in analog. But those aren't the only versions of these songs in existence. So you're not talking extinction level event, where if an old reel is fucked, the song is wiped from existence in a practical sense.

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

So - the focus is on that. And on a business level, we must all accept that 70's and 80's Prince is of more worth to the general public than the post-WB stuff. For these two reasons, that's where the archival work is happening, and other things are on the backburner for now.

That's not to say that there aren't post-WB projects that need re-issuing. And so that's happening. But for the near future at least, these will be straight re-issues, like what we've seen with Emancipation, Chaos, etc.

thanks for that, militant

i didn't realise that michael howe is for now the only curator of the vault, or at least the
man in charge of the team curating the vault.

somehow i had got it into my head that with another company, like perhaps sony, there
would be another person in charge of going through the post WB material and getting a
headstart on that, so that once the rights to these songs/releases are negotiable, there'd
be a lot of material to present to possible candidates, to butter up a possible deal

i don't know why, that's just my 'from the sidelines' guesstimate.

it stands to reason that if one person (and their team) is going to document/digitize and
preserve all of the vault, the earliest material will be first, certainly.

greedy me was just hoping that come 2020 or so we'd get WB reissues and remasters,
PLUS additionally we'd be getting vault albums from the post 1996 period, including a
few remasters and expanded reissues

oh well, let's just wait and see then.

Militant said:

I was under NDA to promote the recent reissues, so I might be able to shed some light based on discussions had. And I will be careful here just so I don't piss anyone off. Some of this is still my speculation based on fragments and my own experience being in the music industry for nearly 20 years. So take this with a grain of salt - I'm not presenting all of this as gospel facts.

I worked on a list of possible ideas around the Emancipation re-release specifically, and during that time, I did raise the subject of outtakes, and questioned whether it'd be possible to include Emancipation era outtakes.

My understanding is that Sony do have the rights, but not the green light from the Estate right now. Archival of what's in the vault is a long process, and as much as we'd all love to have his job, Michael Howe's task is actually quite arduous. For perhaps obvious reasons - including the age of the material and the business need - there is still archival work happening around things that are contained on physical reels. Preservation, etc.

By the time Prince left Warners, we're largely in the digital age. So you're talking files now - not reels. Although, there have stilll been many instances where stuff has been mixed onto tape in analog. But those aren't the only versions of these songs in existence. So you're not talking extinction level event, where if an old reel is fucked, the song is wiped from existence in a practical sense.

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

So - the focus is on that. And on a business level, we must all accept that 70's and 80's Prince is of more worth to the general public than the post-WB stuff. For these two reasons, that's where the archival work is happening, and other things are on the backburner for now.

That's not to say that there aren't post-WB projects that need re-issuing. And so that's happening. But for the near future at least, these will be straight re-issues, like what we've seen with Emancipation, Chaos, etc.

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS. Some of that I suspected, other stuff I didn't know. The preservation takes time, and even in three years it won't be done, primed and ready for instant distribution.

Militant said:

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

Yesterday I listened to the Peach and Black podcast's interview of Niko Bolas (the engineer from the Orgiinals). He suggested the oldest tape is actually not in the most danger because its chemicat composition was a better qualtiy. It's the slightly less old stuff recorded on tape with a different, inferior composition that's in greater danger.

TrivialPursuit said:

Militant said:

I was under NDA to promote the recent reissues, so I might be able to shed some light based on discussions had. And I will be careful here just so I don't piss anyone off. Some of this is still my speculation based on fragments and my own experience being in the music industry for nearly 20 years. So take this with a grain of salt - I'm not presenting all of this as gospel facts.

I worked on a list of possible ideas around the Emancipation re-release specifically, and during that time, I did raise the subject of outtakes, and questioned whether it'd be possible to include Emancipation era outtakes.

My understanding is that Sony do have the rights, but not the green light from the Estate right now. Archival of what's in the vault is a long process, and as much as we'd all love to have his job, Michael Howe's task is actually quite arduous. For perhaps obvious reasons - including the age of the material and the business need - there is still archival work happening around things that are contained on physical reels. Preservation, etc.

By the time Prince left Warners, we're largely in the digital age. So you're talking files now - not reels. Although, there have stilll been many instances where stuff has been mixed onto tape in analog. But those aren't the only versions of these songs in existence. So you're not talking extinction level event, where if an old reel is fucked, the song is wiped from existence in a practical sense.

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

So - the focus is on that. And on a business level, we must all accept that 70's and 80's Prince is of more worth to the general public than the post-WB stuff. For these two reasons, that's where the archival work is happening, and other things are on the backburner for now.

That's not to say that there aren't post-WB projects that need re-issuing. And so that's happening. But for the near future at least, these will be straight re-issues, like what we've seen with Emancipation, Chaos, etc.

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS. Some of that I suspected, other stuff I didn't know. The preservation takes time, and even in three years it won't be done, primed and ready for instant distribution.

Yeah, that was a great post and thanks.

Its wild to think about but Prince's songs and their preservation can be related to the modern dilemma of plain old normal people like most of us trying to archive things like home movies, picture albums and digitial libraires in a way that's constant and up to date. We've all been through it.

Finding grandma's old 8mm reels and transferring them to VHS. Finding the VHS stuff and rolling that into a DVD or something. Old faded polaroids of your grandparents as babies. Some old SIm card from a phone or a camera with baby pics/vidoes on it. Imagine recording so much music (or videos or concerts) every day for that many years and, not only recording new stuff THAT DAY, EVERY DAY, but tending to it and making sure that the things you socked away decades ago and forgot about didn't deteriorate or turn to dust.

Of course the main difference is that, for most of us, only a few people give a shit what WE have decided to preserve (usually close family members) since we're not famous and usually not geniuses, but here we have a vast collection of pure brilliance that could disintegrate the first time you try to play or even touch it that thousands of people want to hear and will pay good money for.

"oooohhh! What this tape?"

*crumbles to dust in the tape player*

*is lost forever*

*may be worth millions*

I can see how that job could be daunting.

lurker316 said:

Militant said:

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

Yesterday I listened to the Peach and Black podcast's interview of Niko Bolas (the engineer from the Orgiinals). He suggested the oldest tape is actually not in the most danger because its chemicat composition was a better qualtiy. It's the slightly less old stuff recorded on tape with a different, inferior composition that's in greater danger.

.

Exactly. I can confirm what Niko Bolas said. I work on an audiovisual archive containing more than 50 years of recordings. I would be far more worried about files/songs stored on harddrives from the 90s/00s than on tapes from the 70s/80s...

[Edited 11/9/19 2:44am]

herb4 said:

Its wild to think about but Prince's songs and their preservation can be related to the modern dilemma of plain old normal people like most of us trying to archive things like home movies, picture albums and digitial libraires in a way that's constant and up to date. We've all been through it.

.

Of course Prince could have done that himself instead of leaving a mess.

Militant said:

I was under NDA to promote the recent reissues, so I might be able to shed some light based on discussions had. And I will be careful here just so I don't piss anyone off. Some of this is still my speculation based on fragments and my own experience being in the music industry for nearly 20 years. So take this with a grain of salt - I'm not presenting all of this as gospel facts.

I worked on a list of possible ideas around the Emancipation re-release specifically, and during that time, I did raise the subject of outtakes, and questioned whether it'd be possible to include Emancipation era outtakes.

My understanding is that Sony do have the rights, but not the green light from the Estate right now. Archival of what's in the vault is a long process, and as much as we'd all love to have his job, Michael Howe's task is actually quite arduous. For perhaps obvious reasons - including the age of the material and the business need - there is still archival work happening around things that are contained on physical reels. Preservation, etc.

By the time Prince left Warners, we're largely in the digital age. So you're talking files now - not reels. Although, there have stilll been many instances where stuff has been mixed onto tape in analog. But those aren't the only versions of these songs in existence. So you're not talking extinction level event, where if an old reel is fucked, the song is wiped from existence in a practical sense.

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

So - the focus is on that. And on a business level, we must all accept that 70's and 80's Prince is of more worth to the general public than the post-WB stuff. For these two reasons, that's where the archival work is happening, and other things are on the backburner for now.

That's not to say that there aren't post-WB projects that need re-issuing. And so that's happening. But for the near future at least, these will be straight re-issues, like what we've seen with Emancipation, Chaos, etc.

Thanks for the detailed information. So, it appears that Susan Rogers was on point when she stated (I think way back in the 90's) that she was concerned about the condition of his tapes and the state of the Vault.

*

I'm glad they're focusing on preserving the 70's and 80's music. It would be a crime to lose it.

olb99 said:

lurker316 said:

Yesterday I listened to the Peach and Black podcast's interview of Niko Bolas (the engineer from the Orgiinals). He suggested the oldest tape is actually not in the most danger because its chemicat composition was a better qualtiy. It's the slightly less old stuff recorded on tape with a different, inferior composition that's in greater danger.

.

Exactly. I can confirm what Niko Bolas said. I work on an audiovisual archive containing more than 50 years of recordings. I would be far more worried about files/songs stored on harddrives from the 90s/00s than on tapes from the 70s/80s...

[Edited 11/9/19 2:44am]

.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've done some form of triage, and determined that while perhaps the 90s/00s material is in similar danger as the older material, it is not a priority from an artistic and money-making point of view.

Militant said:

I was under NDA to promote the recent reissues, so I might be able to shed some light based on discussions had. And I will be careful here just so I don't piss anyone off. Some of this is still my speculation based on fragments and my own experience being in the music industry for nearly 20 years. So take this with a grain of salt - I'm not presenting all of this as gospel facts.

I worked on a list of possible ideas around the Emancipation re-release specifically, and during that time, I did raise the subject of outtakes, and questioned whether it'd be possible to include Emancipation era outtakes.

My understanding is that Sony do have the rights, but not the green light from the Estate right now. Archival of what's in the vault is a long process, and as much as we'd all love to have his job, Michael Howe's task is actually quite arduous. For perhaps obvious reasons - including the age of the material and the business need - there is still archival work happening around things that are contained on physical reels. Preservation, etc.

By the time Prince left Warners, we're largely in the digital age. So you're talking files now - not reels. Although, there have stilll been many instances where stuff has been mixed onto tape in analog. But those aren't the only versions of these songs in existence. So you're not talking extinction level event, where if an old reel is fucked, the song is wiped from existence in a practical sense.

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

So - the focus is on that. And on a business level, we must all accept that 70's and 80's Prince is of more worth to the general public than the post-WB stuff. For these two reasons, that's where the archival work is happening, and other things are on the backburner for now.

That's not to say that there aren't post-WB projects that need re-issuing. And so that's happening. But for the near future at least, these will be straight re-issues, like what we've seen with Emancipation, Chaos, etc.

Militant, you always have the best info! Could you provide any insight on how the vault music is being preserved? How does that happen and how long say 1 song take?

BartVanHemelen said:

herb4 said:

Its wild to think about but Prince's songs and their preservation can be related to the modern dilemma of plain old normal people like most of us trying to archive things like home movies, picture albums and digitial libraires in a way that's constant and up to date. We've all been through it.

.

Of course Prince could have done that himself instead of leaving a mess.

Yeah...what a lazy jerk that Prince guy was. Always sitting on his ass doing nothing. He should have done so much more, right?

Maybe you can get back to us after your 40th studio album, 20th top ten hit and your 4th motion picture once you've wrapped up your Super Bowl halftime appearance and put the finishing touches on that recording studio and those schools you're building along with all those scholarships you're funding. That is, once your current tour is wrapped up I mean. I'd hate to lean on you too much and interrupt your incessant shitposting.

We'll wait.

Dude did more in one year than most of us will accomplish in a lifetime but yes, please, let's shit on the things he never got around to while he was writing a new song every day.

herb4 said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Of course Prince could have done that himself instead of leaving a mess.

Yeah...what a lazy jerk that Prince guy was. Always sitting on his ass doing nothing. He should have done so much more, right?

Maybe you can get back to us after your 40th studio album, 20th top ten hit and your 4th motion picture once you've wrapped up your Super Bowl halftime appearance and put the finishing touches on that recording studio and those schools you're building along with all those scholarships you're funding. That is, once your current tour is wrapped up I mean. I'd hate to lean on you too much and interrupt your incessant shitposting.

We'll wait.

Dude did more in one year than most of us will accomplish in a lifetime but yes, please, let's shit on the things he never got around to while he was writing a new song every day.

Good points. But, Prince was also a multi-millionaire. He could have paid reliable and experienced people to do the work on the Vault

violetcrush said:

herb4 said:

Yeah...what a lazy jerk that Prince guy was. Always sitting on his ass doing nothing. He should have done so much more, right?

Maybe you can get back to us after your 40th studio album, 20th top ten hit and your 4th motion picture once you've wrapped up your Super Bowl halftime appearance and put the finishing touches on that recording studio and those schools you're building along with all those scholarships you're funding. That is, once your current tour is wrapped up I mean. I'd hate to lean on you too much and interrupt your incessant shitposting.

We'll wait.

Dude did more in one year than most of us will accomplish in a lifetime but yes, please, let's shit on the things he never got around to while he was writing a new song every day.

Good points. But, Prince was also a multi-millionaire. He could have paid reliable and experienced people to do the work on the Vault

Sure, but he often mentioned how he didn't dwell much on the past and I tend to believe him based on the things he chose to release year to year. I gather that 95% of whatever he was doing on a given day was focused on the task at hand or something coming up in the near future, not old tracks that he had abandoned or had played out in his mind.

He also had the consistent problem with knowing who to trust from day to day and anyone who had access to that stuff was more likely than not to pilfer some of it for personal side gains. I mean, who would you trust to hand the keys off to that vault? Bootleg leaks were a thorn in his side from the moment he broke large and never really went away. He seemed to hate tracks being leaked.

Practically from 1983-1984 on, he was surrounded by syncoohants, theives, groupies and yes men looking to ride his coat tails and get inside his world. I was just responding to Bart asserting that he somehow fucked up by not taking better care of his stash and rebutting the idea that he was lazy for not tending to it better.



I was

BartVanHemelen said:

olb99 said:

.

Exactly. I can confirm what Niko Bolas said. I work on an audiovisual archive containing more than 50 years of recordings. I would be far more worried about files/songs stored on harddrives from the 90s/00s than on tapes from the 70s/80s...

[Edited 11/9/19 2:44am]

.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've done some form of triage, and determined that while perhaps the 90s/00s material is in similar danger as the older material, it is not a priority from an artistic and money-making point of view.

Won't someone consider the fate of the harddrive containing all 18 versions of "The P"??

herb4 said:

herb4 said:

violetcrush said:

Good points. But, Prince was also a multi-millionaire. He could have paid reliable and experienced people to do the work on the Vault

Sure, but he often mentioned how he didn't dwell much on the past and I tend to believe him based on the things he chose to release year to year.

.

Prince said a lot of things that weren't true. Noticed there's a new book out? Noticed what it contains? Noticed where they got it from?

.

I gather that 95% of whatever he was doing on a given day was focused on the task at hand or something coming up in the near future, not old tracks that he had abandoned or had played out in his mind.

.

Seems to me there was a lot of bible thumping.

.

I was just responding to Bart asserting that he somehow fucked up by not taking better care of his stash and rebutting the idea that he was lazy for not tending to it better.

.

Where did I say "lazy"?

.

Also, Paisley Park itself was in dire disrepair at the time of his death, and the Estate spent millions in repairing it. Dude didn't even bother to keep his home/place of work up to code.

olb99 said:

Militant said:

By the time Prince left Warners, we're largely in the digital age. So you're talking files now - not reels. Although, there have stilll been many instances where stuff has been mixed onto tape in analog. But those aren't the only versions of these songs in existence. So you're not talking extinction level event, where if an old reel is fucked, the song is wiped from existence in a practical sense.

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

.

Most of what Prince recorded in the mid-'90s should be on digital (DASH) tape reels, taped on his Studer D820 machine, not on hard drives. In my experience digital audio tapes (both DASH and R-DAT) (and in fact, hard drives) are FAR more vulnerable than analog tapes, so archiving these DASH tapes would be more urgent than archiving the analog stuff from the '80s. I do hope Prince didn't record anything on R-DAT as that's a very unreliable consumer format, but even the DASH tapes can prove to be very problematic after so many years.
.

I'm pretty sure the Estate will never actually finish archiving absolutely everything (incl. all the rehearsal cassettes, all the live tapes, all the films and videos, all the hard drives, optical disks, etc) as it's simply cost-prohibitive. Transferring and archiving just a single reel of tape at Iron Mountain costs thousands and they won't ever have the dough to archive absolutely everything nor do they have the intention, in my opinion. They will just continue to cherry-pick stuff they want to release and they'll be busy doing that for many many more years. Maybe (hopefully!) they'll finish transferring at least all of the multitracks and the more important mixdown tapes eventually, but I think that's the most we can hope for.
.

Kares said:

I do hope Prince didn't record anything on R-DAT as that's a very unreliable consumer format, but even the DASH tapes can prove to be very problematic after so many years.

.

.

IIRC The Undertaker was recorded "direct to DAT". One Nite Alone... Live! is also based on DAT recordings according to the credits: http://www.princevault.co...e..._Live! .

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

olb99 said:

.

Exactly. I can confirm what Niko Bolas said. I work on an audiovisual archive containing more than 50 years of recordings. I would be far more worried about files/songs stored on harddrives from the 90s/00s than on tapes from the 70s/80s...

[Edited 11/9/19 2:44am]

First, there would probably be DAT tapes from the early 90s, not hard drives, and although platters do freeze it would definitely be easier to retrieve that info then degraded tape. What Niko is referring to is that during certain years the analog tapes being produced were made with inferior materials (I can't remember the specific years) that caused the tape to degrade faster. So, for example you can have a tape from the 70s that's perfect yet one from 84 from the same company that is crumbling now. They know which tape manufacturers and stocks were affected. Either way, it's still of general importance to preserve/digitize older tape before digital.

.

The problem also seems to be that a lot of the mixed" versions seem to exist only on cassette tapes, hence the need for Bolas et al to re-create" those mixes from the multi-tracks. It's telling that they were looking for the early version of an ATWIAD track and didn't find it, yet it is circulating among elite collectors.

fredmagnus said:

^ As far as hard drives are concerned, I hope they've already backed up everything on newer HD.

.

Even if they have the files and they are uncorrupted, the question is: can those still be used? Is there software that can read them and play them as intended?

BartVanHemelen said:

Kares said:

I do hope Prince didn't record anything on R-DAT as that's a very unreliable consumer format, but even the DASH tapes can prove to be very problematic after so many years.

.

.

IIRC The Undertaker was recorded "direct to DAT". One Nite Alone... Live! is also based on DAT recordings according to the credits: http://www.princevault.co...e..._Live! .

.

Yeah, thanks, but I wonder if they really meant the small DAT cassettes (aka R-DAT), which is a consumer format, or perhaps they were multitrack ADATs for the ONAL stuff – or in case of The Undertaker, it could've been open reel, DASH tapes and they just mentioned "DAT" as a general abbreviation for digital audio tape. Normal (consumer) DAT cassettes can be unreliable even if the machines were professional units, the format itself isn't.
.
But you could be right of course, P used all sorts of formats over the years, I just find it funny that someone would choose to use the little DAT cassettes (with their extremely thin tape) for tracking in the studio when they have proper Studer machines too, including the D820 if they wanted digital.
Kamasutra, for example, was definitely tracked on DASH as the digital tape reels can be seen on the vault photos.
.

[Edited 11/11/19 2:13am]

lurker316 said:

Militant said:

There is an urgent need to fix and preserve the oldest material in the vault. There are old reels that are degrading, and the oldest material is at the most risk. I heard directly from Manuela that even during their marriage, there were instances where old tapes were brought up from the vault and were already damaged at that time - and that was 15 years ago. That's not to say that things can't be fixed - they often can. But action needs to be taken as soon as possible to do that, and that's what's happening at Iron Mountain.

Yesterday I listened to the Peach and Black podcast's interview of Niko Bolas (the engineer from the Orgiinals). He suggested the oldest tape is actually not in the most danger because its chemicat composition was a better qualtiy. It's the slightly less old stuff recorded on tape with a different, inferior composition that's in greater danger.

That actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that the first two albums were done in pro studios.

Prince blew his three album budget on mostly the first album and then the second. That's why Dirty Mind sonically sounds muddy - but given the style of the songs, it worked. It was recorded in a low budget leaky basement in his house.

So it's likely the stuff recorded at his house, between I guess 1980 and around 82 or so when he mostly started working at Sunset Sound (and before 1999 became a hit and he had more money to work with) where lesser quality recording material was used.

I suspect the most obvious example we have so far of this, is the version of "Wouldn't You Love To Love Me?" that ended up on Originals. There was only so much they could do with what they had, and thus it's sonically worse than the rest of the album.

Militant said:

lurker316 said:

Yesterday I listened to the Peach and Black podcast's interview of Niko Bolas (the engineer from the Orgiinals). He suggested the oldest tape is actually not in the most danger because its chemicat composition was a better qualtiy. It's the slightly less old stuff recorded on tape with a different, inferior composition that's in greater danger.

That actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that the first two albums were done in pro studios.

Prince blew his three album budget on mostly the first album and then the second. That's why Dirty Mind sonically sounds muddy - but given the style of the songs, it worked. It was recorded in a low budget leaky basement in his house.

So it's likely the stuff recorded at his house, between I guess 1980 and around 82 or so when he mostly started working at Sunset Sound (and before 1999 became a hit and he had more money to work with) where lesser quality recording material was used.

I suspect the most obvious example we have so far of this, is the version of "Wouldn't You Love To Love Me?" that ended up on Originals. There was only so much they could do with what they had, and thus it's sonically worse than the rest of the album.

Someone, whose name escapes me, said recently that what happened to WYLTLM? was more in post-production. Something about over-compression, rather than the tape really being in that bad of quality.

Question, though - When Prince would submit those progress tapes to WB, was he submitting actual 1/2 or 1/4 studio reels or was he submitting cassettes or DATs to them? The stuff off PR Deluxe was sourced from those progress submissions, I thought (with exception of Electric Intercourse?), and I can't imagine they just preserved cassettes or even DATs so well for 30 years.

LoveGalore said:

Militant said:

That actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that the first two albums were done in pro studios.

Prince blew his three album budget on mostly the first album and then the second. That's why Dirty Mind sonically sounds muddy - but given the style of the songs, it worked. It was recorded in a low budget leaky basement in his house.

So it's likely the stuff recorded at his house, between I guess 1980 and around 82 or so when he mostly started working at Sunset Sound (and before 1999 became a hit and he had more money to work with) where lesser quality recording material was used.

I suspect the most obvious example we have so far of this, is the version of "Wouldn't You Love To Love Me?" that ended up on Originals. There was only so much they could do with what they had, and thus it's sonically worse than the rest of the album.

Someone, whose name escapes me, said recently that what happened to WYLTLM? was more in post-production. Something about over-compression, rather than the tape really being in that bad of quality.

Question, though - When Prince would submit those progress tapes to WB, was he submitting actual 1/2 or 1/4 studio reels or was he submitting cassettes or DATs to them? The stuff off PR Deluxe was sourced from those progress submissions, I thought (with exception of Electric Intercourse?), and I can't imagine they just preserved cassettes or even DATs so well for 30 years.

I would guess that someone had digitised those cassettes at some point, which'd be why the "Moonbeam Levels" version on 4Ever appeared to be the same version that had been bootlegged already.

The archival process would barely have started by the time PR Deluxe came out - so they used whatever they had available, source wise.