I don't usually listen to this album on Spotify but the other day I was having a little gathering and decided to play it on spotify using speakers, and not only was the volume low, the sound quality wasn't clear and crisp compared to his other stuff. I feel the same way about Lovesexy on Spotify, but even then, Lovesexy's sound is still better than Purple Rain's.

I wonder why that is.

paisleyparkgirl said:

I don't usually listen to this album on Spotify but the other day I was having a little gathering and decided to play it on spotify using speakers, and not only was the volume low, the sound quality wasn't clear and crisp compared to his other stuff. I feel the same way about Lovesexy on Spotify, but even then, Lovesexy's sound is still better than Purple Rain's.

I wonder why that is.

.
Basically it's because Prince wasn't a mastering engineer and he didn't really know what he was doing when he remastered PR with Josh. P just always liked pushing things into the red – so his remaster is too hot, and it gets squashed by Spotify's automated loudness normalisation algorithm.

Kares said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

I don't usually listen to this album on Spotify but the other day I was having a little gathering and decided to play it on spotify using speakers, and not only was the volume low, the sound quality wasn't clear and crisp compared to his other stuff. I feel the same way about Lovesexy on Spotify, but even then, Lovesexy's sound is still better than Purple Rain's.

I wonder why that is.

.
Basically it's because Prince wasn't a mastering engineer and he didn't really know what he was doing when he remastered PR with Josh. P just always liked pushing things into the red – so his remaster is too hot, and it gets squashed by Spotify's automated loudness normalisation algorithm.

Oh, that's a pity then.

paisleyparkgirl said:

Kares said:

.
Basically it's because Prince wasn't a mastering engineer and he didn't really know what he was doing when he remastered PR with Josh. P just always liked pushing things into the red – so his remaster is too hot, and it gets squashed by Spotify's automated loudness normalisation algorithm.

Oh, that's a pity then.

.
Btw, you have a good ear for noticing the distortion too. You should be listening to your own CDs (or files) instead of relying on these stupid streaming services that apply their own processing.

Kares said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

Oh, that's a pity then.

.
Btw, you have a good ear for noticing the distortion too. You should be listening to your own CDs (or files) instead of relying on these stupid streaming services that apply their own processing.

Yeah, it was a get together so I thought it'd be more practical to just play the music this way but it was a bad idea.

Kares said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

Oh, that's a pity then.

.
Btw, you have a good ear for noticing the distortion too. You should be listening to your own CDs (or files) instead of relying on these stupid streaming services that apply their own processing.

Yeah the distortion is pretty noticeable to me especially on the outro of Let's Go Crazy and the "rockout" section of Darling Nikki with the synth stabs combined with the drum hits, lots of clipping there

Just another reason to not stream.

Do people still drop their phone in a bucket for "speaker effect"???

There is no stereo.

There is no musical reality.

Oh.

You said "speakerS"

The OG CD is still the best digital version of PR.

That being said all versions have a certain amount of distortion in the mix on some of the more "busy" tracks.

Somewhat unrelated, but Spotify sucks. Have they added a dynamic EQ yet? Honestly out of every FLAC or MP3 having a dynamic EQ with Prince is most essential because in the 80s he liked that big kick drum and super enhanced treble yet the basslines themselves are all super buried.

[Edited 8/3/23 21:43pm]

Don't know a damn thing about spot whatever but Purple Rain still sounds terrific on Ipod, tape, CD. and LP.

[Edited 8/3/23 22:50pm]

I wonder how much involvement Prince even had in this remaster, on a side note. He doesn't seem like the type to sit behind the desk and tweaking the songs - if I had to guess he probably went to Josh and said "here part of my new WB deal is giving them a Purple Rain remaster, have at it" and Josh cranked the crap out of the compressors and squashed it all dynamically to fit with the dynamic wars trends

strawberryletter23 said:

I wonder how much involvement Prince even had in this remaster, on a side note. He doesn't seem like the type to sit behind the desk and tweaking the songs - if I had to guess he probably went to Josh and said "here part of my new WB deal is giving them a Purple Rain remaster, have at it" and Josh cranked the crap out of the compressors and squashed it all dynamically to fit with the dynamic wars trends

Just look at the general style of mastering his CDs had starting from Love Symbol onward. You believe he had no say or control over how those were?

PR remaster is par for the course for the general Brickwall Experience he actively cultivated in a large portion of his career.

WhisperingDandelions said:

strawberryletter23 said:

I wonder how much involvement Prince even had in this remaster, on a side note. He doesn't seem like the type to sit behind the desk and tweaking the songs - if I had to guess he probably went to Josh and said "here part of my new WB deal is giving them a Purple Rain remaster, have at it" and Josh cranked the crap out of the compressors and squashed it all dynamically to fit with the dynamic wars trends

Just look at the general style of mastering his CDs had starting from Love Symbol onward. You believe he had no say or control over how those were?

PR remaster is par for the course for the general Brickwall Experience he actively cultivated in a large portion of his career.

I never said he didn't have a say or have control over the masterings, but I don't think he was the type as far as I can assume, to literally sit down at the desk while the mastering enigineer was doing their thing and co-opting the gear and board

He probably just hired mastering engineers, they did their thing (i.e. make things loud cause in the 90s onwards that was trendy) and he gave the green light to release them just as with Josh and the PR remaster. That was sort of the concept I was getting at here

[Edited 8/5/23 22:40pm]

strawberryletter23 said:

I never said he didn't have a say or have control over the masterings, but I don't think he was the type as far as I can assume, to literally sit down at the desk while the mastering enigineer was doing their thing and co-opting the gear and board

He probably just hired mastering engineers, they did their thing (i.e. make things loud cause in the 90s onwards that was trendy) and he gave the green light to release them just as with Josh and the PR remaster. That was sort of the concept I was getting at here

[Edited 8/5/23 22:40pm]

Totally, but putting it on the engineers for what was overly maximized/objectively horrible mastering in the 90s/00s is highly, highly questionable, was what I was getting at.

It just seems unlikely that these albums would consistently be among the worst mastering jobs of all time with so many # of records with Prince having no input or consent over it, when it somehow got even worse when he left WB and had his own NPG Records and assumedly was in complete and total control of every facet of the production process, if merely in an advisory role.

Most engineers from reading forums and anecdotes and stuff over the years report that the brickwall madness of the 90s/00s wasn't them at all: it was the artists directing them to "master it to 11". The trendy mastering you mention became trendy because of the artists themselves wanting to stand out, "make my album bigger", "make my album punchier", etc.

I agree he's probably wasn't sitting around tweaking knobs but surely he was aware what his CDs had become, and was absolutely in-charge of continuing/cultivating that trend record after record.

[Edited 8/5/23 23:49pm]