LoveGalore said:

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I am still weirded out that they didn't include the full 1999 with latin segment.

Yeah. I would have loved that, too.

Maybe they are saving something to release at a later day? There's lotsa songs and early versions of songs that didn't make it onto the Super Deluxe set's Vault discs, so they can always release a third one with the full length 1999 as the opening track.

I had a long drive this weekend, so I loaded up all the CDs onto my MP3 player and hit the road.

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Man, what a GREAT set. I'm so glad I've been avoiding "1999" tracks for the last several months, because it made the first listen to the remastered album that much better.

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And the Vault tracks... WOW! Stuff I've never heard of, in crystal clear quality.

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Hell, the booklet was amazing! I wasn't looking forward to reading Duff's essay, but he's a true fan. You can hear it in his words.

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I feel sorry for the fans out there that are not happy with this reissue. I've been a fan for over three decades, and I'm delirous (see what I did there?) with glee because of this set. Sure, I've got a couple of the Vault tracks on a couple of boots, but they're third generation and dull sounding. Now I've got nice versions.

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By the way: If anyone from the Estate is listening, PLEASE use the same box format and size for future Deluxe Editions. I want them all side-by-side on my shelf, looking uniform. PLEASE!!!

scififilmnerd said:

LoveGalore said:

Trump, fascism, and everything else is irrelevant to this thread. The issue was, speaking of discretion, about someone being a dickhead about transgender people and ranting about transgendered children of all things. Somehow that has morphed into y'all going tit for tat on a non-issue. Can this thread be brought back into some semblance of relevance?

Agreed. There's already a thread for that.

However, comments made here will be replied to here. Just sayin'.

Hamad said:

scififilmnerd said:

Yeah. I would have loved that, too.

Maybe they are saving something to release at a later day? There's lotsa songs and early versions of songs that didn't make it onto the Super Deluxe set's Vault discs, so they can always release a third one with the full length 1999 as the opening track.

Latin segment? Can you guys elaborate?

Yes. When 1999 - The New Master was released in 1999 it ended with a musical segment that o(+> said was also on the orginal version.

Can the sometimes overzealous moderators please move all of this rediculous debate about the violence from this thread to some other forum division. For heavens sake, for as much a actual relevant Prince discussion gets micromanaged, why is this nonsense allowed to derail this thread?

scififilmnerd said:

Hamad said:

scififilmnerd said: Latin segment? Can you guys elaborate?

Yes. When 1999 - The New Master was released in 1999 it ended with a musical segment that o(+> said was also on the orginal version.

"o(+> said" are the key words here.

scififilmnerd said:

scififilmnerd said:

Hamad said:

scififilmnerd said: Latin segment? Can you guys elaborate?

Yes. When 1999 - The New Master was released in 1999 it ended with a musical segment that o(+> said was also on the orginal version.

I do find it ALMOST hard to believe he was doing latin-inspired music in 1982, but hey. "What Prince said" is what Prince said, lol. And if it is there, I WANNA HEAR IT.

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I would also like to hear any alt versions of other songs too. I like the 1999 SDE a lot, but I also think there's about 2 more discs I woulda put on there. More alt versions of released songs (ie demo versions) and one more disc of outtakes.

LoveGalore said:

Moonbeam said:

LoveGalore said:

My viny set came in today and it is truly gorgeous. A wonderful package, even at its premium pricing. I am still very much enjoying the music ever since the leak some weeks ago, so I feel this material will probably stick with me longer than Originals did (though I wasn't even done with Originals by the time 1999 SDE stole my attention).

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The 20% off coupon for the merch site was nice because they restocked the PP books and I was devastated thinking I had missed my chance to pick them up. I really just want the guitar one and the coupon basically makes it so I pay much less in shipping which is nice.

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I expected a bit more precise notes from Duane. He didn't really need to tell me that such and such a song had drums, bass, guitar, keyboards. I can plainly hear that. Now, pairing up the neat info of HOW many tracks with WHICH keyboards and guitars he was using would be cool (but I guess it was the Madcat for all his guitar use back then).

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I am in agreement with his notes that Vagina was unlikely to actually be intended for V6, that Bold Generation likely was recorded DURING The Time sessions but not necessarily intended FOR them (they have no piano-driven songs anyway), that Money Don't Grow On Trees as it exists on the set was by then no longer a V6 song.

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What still sticks out to me is that the majority of this stuff sounds nothing like anything on the record, really. I mean maybe a few do - Possessed, Turn It Up, Feel U Up, Irresistible Bitch, and Purple Music. But really the vast majority of these songs feel like a direct sequel to Controversy which is actually quite surprising...

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In other eras, I feel like you could see him telegraphing the next record in some songs which you realize in hindsight. (It telegraphs Lovesexy, Paisley Park telegraphs Parade, etc.) With this, the difference between Controversy and 1999 is so unbelievably stark, but here we have 2 albums worth of material that forms the bridge much better. Love getting this added insight. The transition from the Controversy sound to 1999/PR sound was actually much more gradual than I thought.

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I am still weirded out that they didn't include the full 1999 with latin segment.

It is a fascinating and revealing set, isn’t it? I agree that many of the tracks have a Controversy vibe, particularly on Disc 3. “Rearrange” is a perfect bridge between the two, IMO. Then you have a track like “Money Don’t Grow on Trees” which sounds more like the 70s. By the way, where did you end up getting your copy? I went through Warner Australia and there is still no info on when my sets will ship, let alone arrive.

I opted to order from Amazon US since it seemed like if I ordered it locally it was priced up beyond what it would cost, plus shipping/GST! Order placed the 29th, shipped the 3rd, received it the 9th (it arrived in Oz on 6th but that was a Friday).

LoveGalore said:

Moonbeam said:

LoveGalore said: It is a fascinating and revealing set, isn’t it? I agree that many of the tracks have a Controversy vibe, particularly on Disc 3. “Rearrange” is a perfect bridge between the two, IMO. Then you have a track like “Money Don’t Grow on Trees” which sounds more like the 70s. By the way, where did you end up getting your copy? I went through Warner Australia and there is still no info on when my sets will ship, let alone arrive.

I opted to order from Amazon US since it seemed like if I ordered it locally it was priced up beyond what it would cost, plus shipping/GST! Order placed the 29th, shipped the 3rd, received it the 9th (it arrived in Oz on 6th but that was a Friday).

Nice! I'll keep that in mind for next time. I wrongly guessed that going through Australian channels would be quicker.

Moonbeam said:

[Off topic snip - luv4u]

One thing I will say about the DVD of one of the 1999 concerts: his background singers(Dez, Lisa, and Jill Jones) are on point! They really can sing their asses off, especially on 'How Come U Don't..."! The silver packaging and pictures are pretty cool too. It was also cool seeing the seeds of tracks that would blossom into full productions that we like later(Can't Stop This Feeling, Bold Generation, one of the vault tracks had a drum beat that sounded like Jerk Out).

rudeboy4711 said:

I ripped the first 4 CDs (except for the mono and 7inch edits) last night and couldn’t help but upload the files into Audacity and noticed that all of the songs , except for Irresistible Bitch and Purple Music are brickwalled! Modern day mainstream production standards ugh...

Show us screenshots of the worst ones, if you would? I'm just curious!

Hans-Martin Buff confirmed in our interview with him that the Latin percussion segment was indeed from the original 1999 multitracks.

Militant said:

Hans-Martin Buff confirmed in our interview with him that the Latin percussion segment was indeed from the original 1999 multitracks.

I enjoyed that interview immensely.

rudeboy4711 said:

I ripped the first 4 CDs (except for the mono and 7inch edits) last night and couldn’t help but upload the files into Audacity and noticed that all of the songs , except for Irresistible Bitch and Purple Music are brickwalled! Modern day mainstream production standards ugh...

From my analysis none of them clip plus the dynamic range is an average of 9 on the remaster and 10 on the vault disks, this release is actually fairly decent! The original CD is more dynamic technically, but the remaster is decent and well EQ'd. This release is well done, way better than the Purple Rain remaster that Josh did in my opinion

[Edited 12/11/19 14:17pm]

scififilmnerd said:

Militant said:

Hans-Martin Buff confirmed in our interview with him that the Latin percussion segment was indeed from the original 1999 multitracks.

I enjoyed that interview immensely.

Thank you so much! I actually spoke to Hans yesterday and got some new intel for a future video. Turns out he still has detailed session notes from most of the sessions he worked on!

LoveGalore said:

rudeboy4711 said:

I ripped the first 4 CDs (except for the mono and 7inch edits) last night and couldn’t help but upload the files into Audacity and noticed that all of the songs , except for Irresistible Bitch and Purple Music are brickwalled! Modern day mainstream production standards ugh...

Show us screenshots of the worst ones, if you would? I'm just curious!

Hi Love Galore

Top wave is the original CD (well, the original issue with DMSR on it, so I guess it’s the original re-issue), the middle wave is DJ Foefur’s fan made remaster, bottom is ripped straight from the 2019 remaster CD.

The 2019 remaster has no clipping. There is some compression to raise the average volume at expense of the dynamic range, but I wouldn’t describe this as brick walled. I think it’s been handled rather well.

For comparison, this is what the new remaster of 1999 looks like when compared to Dream Factory from the 1998 Crystal Ball release.

VaultCurator said:

LoveGalore said:

Show us screenshots of the worst ones, if you would? I'm just curious!

Hi Love Galore

Top wave is the original CD (well, the original issue with DMSR on it, so I guess it’s the original re-issue), the middle wave is DJ Foefur’s fan made remaster, bottom is ripped straight from the 2019 remaster CD.

The 2019 remaster has no clipping. There is some compression to raise the average volume at expense of the dynamic range, but I wouldn’t describe this as brick walled. I think it’s been handled rather well.

So really, there's not any brickwalling to speak of from what I am seeing. It is louder, but that is to be expected as the original issues were quite quiet.

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The comparison to Dream Factory is really cool because THAT is indicative of how Prince chose to do remastering type jobs. Compare that to Purple Rain Deluxe and we see that (for some reason) Prince nearly always felt the need to play things extremely loud - especially the older material, but also you can hear his addiction to loudness on his last several records.

I think the 1999 Deluxe is superb and such an exciting template for future Prince Deluxe albums. Michael Howe and the Estate have done a great job and I can't wait to see this done for "Parade" in particular. I think the remaster of the album is great - still true but now with more punch. It's ideal that Bernie Grundman can update his own work as opposed to the monstrosity that was the PR remaster. This will be my definitive version of the album moving forward. The b-sides disc is essential for the AMAZING remastered b-sides of this era and of course LRC Extended mix. The Vault material is mixed but I suppose that's what makes it exciitng in that it let's you see Prince's process. I actually like most of all the various outtakes that have been circulating for years but now we have them in perfect sound. "Purple Music" , "Possessed", "Something In The Water", "Feel U Up", "Do Yourself A Favour" are all amazing now with the detail there to be heard. Perhaps the suprise song for me is "If It'll Make You Happy" - which I think is a great song. Speaking of great songs though it is a shame we couldnt have fresh mixed versions of "Extraloveable" & "Lust You Always" as part of this Deluxe edition as they are both top 10 songs of the era for me, particulalry "Extraloveable". Listening to the other vault songs now you can see how both these songs complete the conceptual picture of the 1999 period and if they were included it would have taken this set to 11. Still I appreciate why they can't come out at this time and think the Estate made the right decision here. Why compromise Prince's reputation un-necessarily. I think if we could get edited versions of these tracks down the line that would be ideal but overall the 1999 Deluxe is an amazing release for me.

[Edited 12/12/19 0:32am]

[Edited 12/12/19 0:36am]

Moonbeam said:

Militant said:

scififilmnerd said:

I enjoyed that interview immensely.

Thank you so much! I actually spoke to Hans yesterday and got some new intel for a future video. Turns out he still has detailed session notes from most of the sessions he worked on!

That sounds great. Looking forward to more revelations.