One thing that's been lost in the promotion of SOTT SDE is how Prince actually made the MUSIC for SOTT, especially the instrumentation that accompanied his vocals on the album tracks. We got some insight into the lyrics which is nice: (1) reading the newspaper, (2) personal relationships, (3) writing for female artists, and (4) a musical / movie concept. And we learned about how other people contibuted instrumental ideas: Miles and W&L getting tapes in the mail / via courier. Eric sometimes created the horn arrangements. Prince sometimes hummed/sang/played the horn parts for Eric and Matt, and they learned them.
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But we got almost no insight into how Prince developed the music. How did he come up with particular chord progresssions--did he come to the studio and put them down the way he wanted on the first take? Or did he try out a few different progressions on some songs when recording with Susan or Cuz, and then arrive at what he liked while they listened? Same applies for the drums and bass lines. We heard a little bit of this from Susan, in talking about The Ballad of Doroty Parker and The Cross, for example, but only for a few songs. I'd love to hear more.
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For the stripped down songs, did he play a lot of parts, like he did on Forever in My Life, and then remove them? Or were It, If I Was Your Girlfriend, Hot Thing, and Sign of the Times stripped down from the start? Was there a guitar solo on The Cross that got taken out?
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Did Prince explain or show why he chose an old-fashioned big band feel on Slow Love--was he trying to stretch out into a range of genres, did it start out differently? Was All My Dreams a show tune style song from the start or did he go through a few styles? And so on.
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Maybe it's just that nobody was around to witness these things. Maybe he wasn't working out these aspects in front of or in conversations with others. But even that would be interesting to know that he had the parts of the songs already very well developed in his head, and so nobody saw that part of the process. We know this was often the case, that he brought fully formed ideas to the studio and laid them down on tape. But I gotta figure some of it was worked out on instruments, rather than exclusively in his head.
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This strikes me as a missed opportunity.

maybe when the book comes out next year

LoveGalore said:

It's the part that most people wouldn't really be privy to, as far as we know. You'll notice that very few people ever go into this insight. I think it is probably because very few people ever had that kind of experience with him. Perhaps Jesse and Dez would have some insight since they spent so much time in the studio with him.

I think the person most qualified to answer this question would be Morris Day. He and Prince were in the studio together alot from 1980 to 1985 and again in 1989/90.

joyinrepetition said:

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There are some podcastst out there on the popular video channel where for example

Susan Rogers explained quite in detail how the recording process went for most songs.

I can't seem to fing them right now, cause there are so many podcast with her - and they are all good,

And iirc Hans Buff also talked about some, as well as some 90's engineer who's name i forgot. He was also very outspoken on Prince's way of recording.

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But I know what you mean. There isn't much known.

I aked once here in some thread why there is such few footage of Prince recording in the studio.

Consider the fact the guy nearly live on a daily basis awongst his instruments and recording tape.

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It would be just so great to have, say, one song completely dissected per recorded instrument.

To be able to get at least a basic idea of ​​how it was assembled, and in what order exactly.

From beginning to end. With all the overdubs and what's left out.

That would be just a great example.

Since he did it basically all alone, and we really have no clue how he did it all.

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He was definitely inspired, and the music is top-tier stuff. It's no wonder this album is considered one of his best, if not THE best.

He had so much music flowing out of him during this era. Prince. Madhouse. Sheila E. etc.

Interesting quuestions but the answers went away with him.

Hopefully the Documentary unearths some video footage from the studio. There has got to be some?

TrevorAyer said:

Vannormal said:

controversy99 said:

Vannormal said:

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There are some podcastst out there on the popular video channel where for example

Susan Rogers explained quite in detail how the recording process went for most songs.

I can't seem to fing them right now, cause there are so many podcast with her - and they are all good,

And iirc Hans Buff also talked about some, as well as some 90's engineer who's name i forgot. He was also very outspoken on Prince's way of recording.

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But I know what you mean. There isn't much known.

I aked once here in some thread why there is such few footage of Prince recording in the studio.

Consider the fact the guy nearly live on a daily basis awongst his instruments and recording tape.

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It would be just so great to have, say, one song completely dissected per recorded instrument.

To be able to get at least a basic idea of ​​how it was assembled, and in what order exactly.

From beginning to end. With all the overdubs and what's left out.

That would be just a great example.

Since he did it basically all alone, and we really have no clue how he did it all.

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Was the 90s guy Chronic Freeze? . I do enjoy Susan’s interviews. She’s given us some explanation of the workings behind the curtain. . And I hear you about having a song dissected by instrument including over dubs. I’d want that info for like half the songs on SOTT. That would be awesome to hear.

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Oh me too. I guess most people here as well. Who wouldn't.

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There is a 'Let's Go Crazy' vocal only out there, sort of acapella.

And that alone, is quite refreching just to hear how he breaths moans and screams (without the instrumentation).

A few recorded bass only or synth only tracks are out there too, but not that remarcable.

I'm pretty much convinced that bootleggers have much more from these stolen cassettes than we know.

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Have you ever seen any of the Classic Albums documentaries?

If we want to understand how he made the music, something like those but done for SOTT is our best bet.

Because Prince was the only person in the room for so much of these recordings (besides Susan Rogers, who isn't to my knowledge a trained musician), the only way we can even really begin to approximate his musical choices on the level of creation would be for someone with a lot of musical knowledge to sit down at a mixing board or such and pull up his multitrack recordings, and to actually see each individual track on its own, layered in. And then to compare that to other takes or other possible tracks, and to analyze each individual part. A good example would be the Dorothy Parker horns, hearing them turned on and off, feeling the sparse nature of the final track versus the elaborateness of the horns, and then stripping it all the way down to just the drum programming. I'm sure there are literally hundredsof compelling instances of these to draw from in SOTT alone.

Something like that would allow us to appreciate the closest thing to having Prince in the room: hearing his individual instruments coming together to make the music.

paraded said:

Have you ever seen any of the Classic Albums documentaries?

If we want to understand how he made the music, something like those but done for SOTT is our best bet.

Because Prince was the only person in the room for so much of these recordings (besides Susan Rogers, who isn't to my knowledge a trained musician), the only way we can even really begin to approximate his musical choices on the level of creation would be for someone with a lot of musical knowledge to sit down at a mixing board or such and pull up his multitrack recordings, and to actually see each individual track on its own, layered in. And then to compare that to other takes or other possible tracks, and to analyze each individual part. A good example would be the Dorothy Parker horns, hearing them turned on and off, feeling the sparse nature of the final track versus the elaborateness of the horns, and then stripping it all the way down to just the drum programming. I'm sure there are literally hundredsof compelling instances of these to draw from in SOTT alone.

Something like that would allow us to appreciate the closest thing to having Prince in the room: hearing his individual instruments coming together to make the music.

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Exactly that.

And my guess is that Susan rogers, together with other engineers of the Prince camp would be just stunning; Peggy, Hans, Don, Femi, etc...

There are some dozens of engineers Prince 'used' in his lifetime - guess they all have something to tell from their very personal experiences concerning the different eras and styles.

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