Ok so here's the deal

The file(s) provided by the estate on that Celebration USB are 128kb/s. Does this matter? Yeah it's pretty dumb in 2023, but this alone does not and cannot explain the quality on the version of 7 they provided. Go take any song and convert it to 128, it's still going to sound leaps and bounds better than this 7 does. Something happened here, intentionally or unintentionally. If nothing catastrophic happened while the estate was preparing this preview USB, then the way P originally recorded this was fukked from the start or the source material is damaged (my opinion on that? very doubtful)

That's all well and good, but the concerning thing is that Spicer seems to be both refusing to acknowledge that something went wrong here while also perhaps implying it was an intentional degradation of the material? When asked he made sure to make us aware that no one complained about the sound quality of 7 during the listening session, which was true. He also didn't really provide any explanation about why 7 sounds the way it does, reading between the lines, I've come to my personal conclusion that it was at least a little bit intentional perhaps knowing the songs would be up online shortly after they gave them out.

What does this say about their management of the music, regardless of how frustrated we may be about what is or isn't getting released?

I'm making a lot of assumptions, but, in absence of mature and official rebuttal from those in charge, there's nothing to go off of other than what we can see. This isn't about one song having bad quality on it, it's about the fact that it would appear those in charge seem to not care at all about offering even the slightest explanation.

So where's the link to Spicer's clarification?

mb71 said:

So where's the link to Spicer's clarification?

When I say clarification what I really mean is obfuscation

https://twitter.com/Charl...th_replies

lustmealways said:

mb71 said:

So where's the link to Spicer's clarification?

When I say clarification what I really mean is obfuscation


https://twitter.com/Charl...th_replies

Thanks. Yeah, he comes across as a bit of a dick.

Prince's digital releases used to be all over the place in regards to bitrate and audio quality. Even then, it was amateurish for a high-caliber artist. There's no reason for it in 2023.

The only reason for the 128kbps on these tracks must be to discourage piracy, and to encourage the actual "purchase" of these tracks at a later time. In that sense, these are merely a "preview" . . . which is not a bad thing either.

For two songs, you could have included lossless versions on those USB cassette drives in additional to the MP3 versions.

lustmealways said:

lustmealways said:

My take is that he's too dim to know the difference.

It's a watermark, nothing else.

i never heard these and won't seek them out.

They will obviously be released sometime soon in original quality.

if they were gonna ruin the audio quality, couldn't they at least have put out something ... better

.

not excited by either tune

Charles is an asshole who gets into fights with fans on twitter and then immediately turns around and preaches about peace and positivity like he's the bigger and better person. This dude clearly doesn't care about being upfront with fans about anything, he just gives non-answers to people asking honest questions and praises/retweets anyone who kisses his ass for the subpar job he has done so far.

I really do believe the estate would be waaay better off in the hands of almost anyone else but this dude.

lustmealways said:

the source material is damaged (my opinion on that? very doubtful)

.

There have already been several instances of that. The alternate Forever In My Life runs all over the place, it's clear its tape has warped over time.

I hope the W2A debacle can be avoided for future releases.

"Stand up and B Strong" (and other tracks) have these annoying clicks because it was sourced from a damaged (or poor quality) CD-r.

Just before its release W2A was ciculating and we were hoping it was a bad copy from a promo and the clicks would not be on the actual release.

I posted this back then.

https://sound.stackexchan...-on-a-cd-r

From the answer I received: "I am rather surprised, as that link does appear to be an official release, that no-one spent the 30 seconds necessary to do it before releasing it."

No, Sony didn't spend time to address this issue and pressed it on CD and a thick quality vinyl.

I don't need a clarification, I just want them to confirm the release will not have this issue or reissue the original "7" version or one of its remixes instead.

[Edited 6/13/23 17:00pm]

Well, this was actually clarified by Spicer during the Funkatopia recap on the Celebration.

"The concern about the 128kb mp3 quality was intentional because i knew it would be bootlegged and there will be those who want to press it up illegally etc."

bizzie said:

Landonfunkmonkey said:

bizzie said:

.

There have already been several instances of that. The alternate Forever In My Life runs all over the place, it's clear its tape has warped over time.

I have noticed a problem with that. But then I still can't hear the distortion on The Breakdown others hear.

.
There's nothing wrong with FIML(alt). The Breakdown, however, is a sonic trainwreck. Like a train hitting a strong brickwall...

bozojones said:

Kares said:

There's nothing wrong with FIML(alt). The Breakdown, however, is a sonic trainwreck. Like a train hitting a strong brickwall...

welcome back babe

Fenwick said:

bozojones said:

Charles is an asshole who gets into fights with fans on twitter and then immediately turns around and preaches about peace and positivity like he's the bigger and better person. This dude clearly doesn't care about being upfront with fans about anything, he just gives non-answers to people asking honest questions and praises/retweets anyone who kisses his ass for the subpar job he has done so far.

I really do believe the estate would be waaay better off in the hands of almost anyone else but this dude.

To be honest, I really don’t have any idea who that guy is as I don’t follow the estate legal entanglements at all. But dang, I’m pretty surprised someone with that much responsibility could be that sophomoric with his replies. Very discouraging to know he’s got ANY role in the legacy.

I was schocked when I read his condescending twitter replies telling people to settle down. I realize that some of the people twitting at him were rude themselves, but he is a professional representing the estate. he should take the high road and not lower himself to that. Also, in many cases, his responses were much ruder than the tweets he was responding to.

Marco81 said:

Well, this was actually clarified by Spicer during the Funkatopia recap on the Celebration.

"The concern about the 128kb mp3 quality was intentional because i knew it would be bootlegged and there will be those who want to press it up illegally etc."

.

This is BS. 7 E Flat doesn't sound shit because it is a 128kbps MP3 (though that doesn't help), but clearly because its source has some problem. Nobody's complaining about the sound quality of "All A Share".

.

Also, his logic is just dumb as fuck. Why even bother with giving Celebration visitors a memento that is deliberately made craptastic?

there's something going on with the cymbals and vox in "all a share" that isn't the result of 128kb/s mp3 encoding IMO

ie: perhaps they did even more than just make them 128

Knew this shit would be some more 128kbps nonsense. I guess we should be thankfully they weren't folded down to mono, too.

I swear the Prince community is the only one I know of doing this shit intentionally, either from leakers or now the official Estate itself. Other artists would get shitty quality 'cause their fans don't know or care, Prince community it's everyone playing pre-preventative parlor games with one another.

TrcikyChristopher said:

lustmealways said:

Ok so here's the deal

The file(s) provided by the estate on that Celebration USB are 128kb/s. Does this matter? Yeah it's pretty dumb in 2023, but this alone does not and cannot explain the quality on the version of 7 they provided. Go take any song and convert it to 128, it's still going to sound leaps and bounds better than this 7 does. Something happened here, intentionally or unintentionally. If nothing catastrophic happened while the estate was preparing this preview USB, then the way P originally recorded this was fukked from the start or the source material is damaged (my opinion on that? very doubtful)

That's all well and good, but the concerning thing is that Spicer seems to be both refusing to acknowledge that something went wrong here while also perhaps implying it was an intentional degradation of the material? When asked he made sure to make us aware that no one complained about the sound quality of 7 during the listening session, which was true. He also didn't really provide any explanation about why 7 sounds the way it does, reading between the lines, I've come to my personal conclusion that it was at least a little bit intentional perhaps knowing the songs would be up online shortly after they gave them out.

What does this say about their management of the music, regardless of how frustrated we may be about what is or isn't getting released?

I'm making a lot of assumptions, but, in absence of mature and official rebuttal from those in charge, there's nothing to go off of other than what we can see. This isn't about one song having bad quality on it, it's about the fact that it would appear those in charge seem to not care at all about offering even the slightest explanation.

My take is that they knew it was going to be leaked. Only the ones at celebration were going to have the files, so they purposely added them in lower quality, on a "cassette", for the fans to share in "bootleg quality" until the release is out. This is why Charles was pretty much implying that if you went to the celebration and heard them there, you'd know not to worry. The leak of the tracks was specifically for those who paid for attendance and using them as a marketing tactic knowing it would create a buzz. Tact may not be Charles' strong point, but the entitlement of some fans to complain about something they were not entitled to be privy to is a bit much.

Officially-provided USB drives cease to be considered a "leak" the moment they are released by an offical entity. They're a free release. Give out cassettes or 8-tracks if you want be intentionally difficult/stringent over whatever this "entitlement" rant you've got here is supposed to be.

Providing new tracks in the most modern means to physically distribute while intentionally included downgraded files that were the cutting-edge digital standard in 1998 is going out of the way to be willfully asinine.

TrevorAyer said:

if they were gonna ruin the audio quality, couldn't they at least have put out something ... better

.

not excited by either tune

I think a Celebration 2023 Sampler souvenir with that USB casette having samples of all the tracks played at the Celebration would been a better release.
Prince used to give out sampler tapes and nobody complaind about those.

Kares said:

.
There's nothing wrong with FIML(alt).

.

Yes there is:

.

For anyone who gives a damn, here is my attempt at an "extended version" of Forever In My Life, combining the album version and the latter half of the version released this week.

.

This took me most of the day, because the tempo of the run thru version doesn't quite match. It seems like the tape has stretched or become deformed in some way because the tempo varies across the 3 minute of the second half. I needed to overlay the drums from the album version so the timing had to be perfect. I chopped the track into 34 segments and adjusted the timing of each one individually. The timing is now very tight but then I started tweaking the EQ, and my production skills ain't worth shit, so if it doesn't sound great on your headphones or in your car then I appologise

.

BTW Spicer said to several people during the Celebration that they'd be releasing the tracks on Sunday. Which then didn't happen. And then a couple of days later there's a press release saying they'll be released on 7/7.

.

What's even the point of giving people shitty MP3s for something that would be officially released the day after? Or did he lie on Saturday when he repeatedly said that they were gonna be released on Sunday?

.

And then you see people defending his bullshit, saying he and Londell have to work hard to release music and organize the Celebration etc. And that this puts a strain on them and causes them to attack fans when they dare critisize the efforts of these "saints".

.

JFC. It's their job to do all that. Nobody forces them, they chose to do this. And AFAIK they get paid a fuckton of money, despite the fact that since they took charge of the Estate, they haven't accomplished shit. All the reissues etc. that have happened have been things that date back to Comerica. That upcoming D&P SDE? Comerica. The TGE and Truth vinyl reissues? Comerica.

.

So their first release is two shitty 128kbps MP3s. One of which sounds like ass. The recording dates for those tracks as stated on the artwork differ from the dates stated during the Celebration.

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Also, Spicer had promised an announcement during the Celebration. Didn't happen.

.

Yte he's still shouting it is going to be a big year, despite the fact 5+ months have passed. And people are defending this, because "even if they release something on Christmas, it's still 2023". Sorry, NO. A big year is where something significant happens every two or three months: several minor releases, plus a big fucking SDE that blows your mind. With plenty of press coverage.