was listening to the black album recently and kept thinking it sounded so DRY

at times i just wanted the drums to bang a bit more.

there was next to no reverb

i suppose purple rain was a rare exception

but he kept this going - emancipation was dry to the extreme and new power soul was much of the same

i guess this was a way to avoid sounding like everyone else in the 80s but sometimes a bit of reverb would have been nice!

i know questlove referred to princes drum sound including a "dead snare" but did prince himself ever comment on this?

It's really why the Michael Howe reverbanomics era was so controversial. Ain't no way the man himself would've ever drenched all those tracks in that copious amount of reverb. They were mixing our guy like he was a gotdam shoegazer. It was like Phil Spector presents... Prince's Originals.

[Edited 8/26/23 5:49am]

'Purple Rain' era wouldn't stand out so much if he used reverb/echo/flange all the time.

i do wonder if he agonised about applying some bigness to those drums on PR (the song) lol

OT: But honestly, one of the worst things about being a Prince fan was seeing him interviewed by some complete idiots, asking him the most spectacularly banal questions.

it is true. for someone people loved to call a genius, he was often on the receiving end of some of the dumbest, borderline insulting questions. but then prince wasnt the greatest interviewee a lot of the time. who knows if he actually WANTED to be asked things like that or if hed want to tell anyone. hed probably dodge it and be a contrarian lol. 'did you not hear the reverb on purple rain'?

[Edited 8/26/23 10:00am]

There is no reason to image that Prince disliked reverb on drums given that he would use it, albeit infrequently.

The things that made Prince's sound stand out is that he enjoyed experimenting and developing sounds, rather than just doing what was cool at the time in the same way as everyone else. He structured his albums deliberately and this is why the Black Album sound has consistency, not that he disliked drum reverb.

[Edited 8/26/23 15:26pm]

nayroo2002 said:

'Purple Rain' era wouldn't stand out so much if he used reverb/echo/flange all the time.

And frankly the echo of the Warehouse was more than enough reverb and track bleed.

IanRG said:

There is no reason to image that Prince disliked reverb on drums given that he would use it, albeit infrequently.

The things that made Prince's sound stand out is that he enjoyed experimenting and developing sounds, rather than just doing what was cool at the time in the same way as everyone else. He structured his albums deliberately and this is why the Black Album sound has consistency, not that he disliked drum reverb.

[Edited 8/26/23 15:26pm]

I think that is spot on. I'd add that Prince almost always did the exact opposite of what was going on at the time.

[Edited 8/30/23 19:06pm]