SquirrelMeat said:

The only '45% digitized' sounds like an overall impressive volume of material, but in all likelyhood, and looking in detail at files named in the PP photos, will be live video and uneddited video reels. Much of which may never be of releasable quality.

Michael Howe, made it clear they scoured the tapes for particular recordings. I don't think the remaining 55% is going to deliver an treasure trove of unknown recordings.

.
No idea what "file names" you're talking about and how you arrived at your conclusion that most "will be live video" reels.

.
Howe & co. scoured the tapes for particular recordings for the particular projects they worked on. There are plenty of treasures to be discovered.

SquirrelMeat said:

The only '45% digitized' sounds like an overall impressive volume of material, but in all likelyhood, and looking in detail at files named in the PP photos, will be live video and uneddited video reels. Much of which may never be of releasable quality.

Michael Howe, made it clear they scoured the tapes for particular recordings. I don't think the remaining 55% is going to deliver an treasure trove of unknown recordings.

The Sony marketing VP said he's not aware of any other artist in history having an archive of unreleased music that comes anywhere close to what Prince generated.

Given, they still have over 50% to discover and some of the surprises that have been released as part of the past SDEs, personally, I'd be far more hopeful about what's in the Vault than you're being.

mattosgood said:

SquirrelMeat said:

The only '45% digitized' sounds like an overall impressive volume of material, but in all likelyhood, and looking in detail at files named in the PP photos, will be live video and uneddited video reels. Much of which may never be of releasable quality.

Michael Howe, made it clear they scoured the tapes for particular recordings. I don't think the remaining 55% is going to deliver an treasure trove of unknown recordings.

The Sony marketing VP said he's not aware of any other artist in history having an archive of unreleased music that comes anywhere close to what Prince generated.

Given, they still have over 50% to discover and some of the surprises that have been released as part of the past SDEs, personally, I'd be far more hopeful about what's in the Vault than you're being.

.
Agreed.
In fact, anytime someone in the know responded to the common, pessimistic views that "there can't be many treasures left in there", they all answered something along the lines of "it's everything we dreamt of and more".
So I'm tired of still seeing all this pessimism, there's a ton of material in there waiting to be discovered. Let's just hope we'll live long enough or that there's a decent sound system in heaven.

If only 45 % is done, then what we have as Deluxe Editions are probably all far from complete.

Vannormal said:

If only 45 % is done, then what we have as Deluxe Editions are probably all far from complete.

Yep. That's why releases should be managed more like software, with versions 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, etc. Unfortunately, this would only be possible with digital/online releases, not with CD/vinyl releases.

Vannormal said:

If only 45 % is done, then what we have as Deluxe Editions are probably all far from complete.

That's a given.
Complete archival releases are thinsg they can do in a very distant future and we proabbly won't be around to experience them. It is what it is.Prince himself shoudl have started this in the 90s but here we are

I for one am happy as hell with many of the treasures already found....like, who knew there were so many amazing gems...

- Walk In Glory - when i realized this was a vocal version of '2 Nigs', I almost lost control of my lawn mower....

- How Come U Don't Call take 2 is now the definitive version of this song I've loved for 37 years.

- Forever In mY Life Early Demo - actually sounds like the fleshed out version and makes the one i loved for 30 years sound like the demo....love them both but they are almost entirely diff

- Big Tall Wall 1 - that is one hell of a trip....nothing sparse or not finished about it....

- Power Fantastic - to hear that lead in with instructions and the original awesome vocals, worth the price of admission...

International Lover - just he and Morris????

1979 I Could Never Take the Place - who wasn't blown away????

1979 Do Me Baby - who wasn't blown away...this is the best version....it smokes the 1981 version...

The vault releases so far has been full of treasure..

JoeyCococo said:

I for one am happy as hell with many of the treasures already found....like, who knew there were so many amazing gems...

- Walk In Glory - when i realized this was a vocal version of '2 Nigs', I almost lost control of my lawn mower....

- How Come U Don't Call take 2 is now the definitive version of this song I've loved for 37 years.

- Forever In mY Life Early Demo - actually sounds like the fleshed out version and makes the one i loved for 30 years sound like the demo....love them both but they are almost entirely diff

- Big Tall Wall 1 - that is one hell of a trip....nothing sparse or not finished about it....

- Power Fantastic - to hear that lead in with instructions and the original awesome vocals, worth the price of admission...

International Lover - just he and Morris????

1979 I Could Never Take the Place - who wasn't blown away????

1979 Do Me Baby - who wasn't blown away...this is the best version....it smokes the 1981 version...

The vault releases so far has been full of treasure..

Indeed.

Big thank you to COMERICA & all involved in the previous team.

Obviously they cared for P. music & legacy as much as for money.

As for now...Well, U know.

[Edited 6/13/25 7:18am]

fredmagnus said:

love2thenines2003 said:

love2thenines2003 said:

fredmagnus said:

love2thenines2003 said:

Comerica did some big BS too when they "Frankensteined some titles" on originals...so they are not gods too...hope no to see again this kind of shit!

Indeed. But when nothing is released, then we have nothing to complain about, right ? Fine then.

Well, we can complain about nothing being released.

love2thenines2003 said:

fredmagnus said:

Indeed.

Big thank you to COMERICA & all involved in the previous team.

Obviously they cared in P. music & legacy as much as in money.

As for now...Well, U know.

Comerica did some big BS too when they "Frankensteined some titles" on originals...so they are not gods too...hope no to see again this kind of shit!

Of course they weren't "gods", but at least they tried and gave us something. That's significantly more than the current estate has done.

johnpiex said:

love2thenines2003 said:

Comerica did some big BS too when they "Frankensteined some titles" on originals...so they are not gods too...hope no to see again this kind of shit!

Frankensteining (and the other stuff) aside, Originals is one of the most entertaining releases in his catalog, imo. No skips for me.

I asked u guys about Originals some 20 years ago. I don't think people that much about it.

mattosgood said:

love2thenines2003 said:

fredmagnus said:

Indeed.

Big thank you to COMERICA & all involved in the previous team.

Obviously they cared in P. music & legacy as much as in money.

As for now...Well, U know.

Comerica did some big BS too when they "Frankensteined some titles" on originals...so they are not gods too...hope no to see again this kind of shit!

Come to think of it, it could have been worse.

.

We could have had:

.

America (Comerica Version):

"Comerica, Comerica
God shed His grace on thee
Comerica, Comerica
Keep the children free"

.

How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore (Michael Howe Version):

"All I wanna know is, baby:
Why that coke we had wasn't good?!
Michael Howe, come! Don't u call me anymore!"

.

mattosgood said:

rap said:

Jesus Christ, and after all this time too.

it highlights just how much was in the Vault

Probably lots and lots of gigs.

It's naive to think that at its point, most of what's left in The Vault, at least what is above average, is still unknown.

Some fans are understandably in full Pokemon frenzy ("Collect'em all!"), but if what's left is on par with the unreleased material we got on the D&P SDE, thank you but not interested.

It's fair to assume the very best from The Vault was already out by the nineties, and even though we got a nice surprise from time to time (mostly pristine studio versions after years of crappy sounding bootlegs), quantity truly doesn't equal quality.

Prince was überprolific, yes, but his ethos of "one song per day" also means lots of meh work (which is only natural and to be expected at such an output rate), except for the few years when he was in an everlasting state of grace (with the Melvoins, Colemans and Leeds fueling it).

God bless the bootleggers: without them, we wouldn't even be here, there would be no myth, no Pier Nilsen, nada: Crystal Ball, Camille, Roadhouse Garden, all the outtakes from the early demos up until Lovesexy, it's the fans that did the Work, years ago. As Tora Tora would rap: "Hard labor and no pay" (or so little).

Good luck to these Thieves In The Temple to come up with something as meaningful as "1986: One Year In The Life" and its 20 gigabytes oozing with love and respect for the material, or the fabulous live testimonials Sabotage, Eye, and all other unknown, dedicated souls provided us with through the decades.

As for these bozos milkers, I only have this to say to them:

I hear there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But U don't really care 4 music, do U?

[Edited 6/12/25 22:37pm]

BonnieC said:

mattosgood said:

it highlights just how much was in the Vault

Probably lots and lots of gigs.

It's naive to think that at its point, most of what's left in The Vault, at least what is above average, is still unknown.

[Edited 6/12/25 22:37pm]

Bad assumption.

BonnieC said:

As for these bozos milkers, I only have this to say to them:

I hear there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But U don't really care 4 music, do U?

[Edited 6/12/25 22:37pm]

What ? Music ?

Or do you mean "Assets" ?

We need to translate everything into this greedy lawyers language

JoeyCococo said:

Gooddoctor23 said:

BonnieC said:

Probably lots and lots of gigs.

It's naive to think that at its point, most of what's left in The Vault, at least what is above average, is still unknown.

[Edited 6/12/25 22:37pm]

Bad assumption.

I would love to be proven wrong.

Time will tell, but It sure Waits For No One...

Didn't Prince say there were full, completed albums in the vault? How has it been 9 years without any of them being released? It seemed such an obvious thing ot do, release the full unrleased completed albums.

How has it been 9 years and even acutal released material isn't avaialbe. the NPG albums, the Beautiful Experience EP, etc.

Newpower Soul was effectively a Prince album.

alandail said:

alandail said:

Didn't Prince say there were full, completed albums in the vault? How has it been 9 years without any of them being released? It seemed such an obvious thing ot do, release the full unrleased completed albums.

How has it been 9 years and even acutal released material isn't avaialbe. the NPG albums, the Beautiful Experience EP, etc.

Newpower Soul was effectively a Prince album.

We did get Welcome 2 America at least, but yeah, more of those should have been released by now.

MIRvmn1 said:

alandail said:

Didn't Prince say there were full, completed albums in the vault? How has it been 9 years without any of them being released? It seemed such an obvious thing ot do, release the full unrleased completed albums.

How has it been 9 years and even acutal released material isn't avaialbe. the NPG albums, the Beautiful Experience EP, etc.

Newpower Soul was effectively a Prince album.

There's an estimate of around 40 unreleased albums in the vault, some with finished artwork. They could've released Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic (1989) instead of the pointless Piano and Microphone 1983 release in 2018 for example. [Edited 6/14/25 16:21pm]

I hate these broad statments. The 40 unreleased albums most likely only have one or two tracks we havent heard. They will be different configarations of albums already released. There wont be much we havent already heard.

Kares said:

psyche2 said:

Of course, and due respect to true professionals. But lend the Vault keys to a bootlegger for a couple of days and I'd be happy for the next dacade.

.

The average bootlegger wouldn't even find the right headblock for a tape within a couple of days, let alone knowing how to install it and how to calibrate a Studer to play back the tape etc...
By the way, I'm sure the Estate has already spent millions of dollars on digitising, companies like Iron Mountain can charge many thousands for professionally transferring just one reel.

Have you checked that?

I tried to find some information from other companies.

For what it's worth, and I'm no expert.

-

Iron Mountain's prices for digitisation services are not publicly available.

Prices from some companies with similar services;

- professional digitisation of 40 reels (w music) around $1,200, estimated at around $30 per reel.

- Some companies charge between $0.05 and $0.10 per page for scanning services, although this can vary depending on the specific service and media type, adn company.

- DigiDat (Belgian company) offers digitisation services for film (reels), starting at €5.90 (per reel) for SD scanning, with additional charges for higher-quality scans and storage media.

Possibly, Iron Mountain will surely charge more, since it is far more specialised I guess.
-

I know it's all about different reels, for different equipment, and having a complex fucked-up purple situation here, knowing Prince didn't take good care of his vault.
Having said that, I find it hard to imagine those currently in charge spending ‘millions of dollars’ on digitisation? Hardly credible imho.
I think maintaining Paisley Park is much more expensive, but I don't know the numbers, although, they still manage to make it profitable, somehow.
I'd like to know what the museum gets out of it, though. How many people want to go see Prince clothes, stuff and posters in a year? Whatever.

We know that money comes in mainly from royalties, right?
But it's never clear what it is spent on, knowing how complex it is, and how much of it is used for cleaning and digitising vault material.
-

It would be nice to have some real insight. Like, an in-depth interview with Michael How, or Duane, since they are no longer involved, would be most welcome.
Honeslty, the current team in charge, I think is trying to spend as little as possible on digitisation, as they have stated that only 45% will be ready in 10 years?
-
Then, another thing.
How on earth did Edelman manage to work on a documentary for 5 years, knowing that only 45% of the material has been digitised?

Why wanted those in charge do that? Knowing that 5 years ago, maybe only 35% was digitized...

-

The secrecy and mysteries around everything post-Prince is so damn overrated, absolutely not needed, and is actually killing his legacy from the inside out. For what? (fill their own pockets?)

If things were more open, known, informative, communicative and ready for open study, fans could even help from the outdside to complete it all.

What sort of an original approach that would be. And far more satisfying for all. Then again I'm a dreamer.

[Edited 6/15/25 5:25am]

Digitizing "professional" tapes costs a lot of money. And digitization is only one of the steps involved in the project. Reference: digitizing the Montreux Jazz Festival archive cost many millions of dollars (about 11,000 audio and video tapes digitized, more than 20 different formats). I can probably find the exact cost of the project, since it's more or less public, but it is expensive.

olb99 said:

Digitizing "professional" tapes costs a lot of money. And digitization is only one of the steps involved in the project. Reference: digitizing the Montreux Jazz Festival archive cost many millions of dollars (about 11,000 audio and video tapes digitized, more than 20 different formats). I can probably find the exact cost of the project, since it's more or less public, but it is expensive.

.

Indeed. And there's a huge difference in costs between services aimed at home users (with their amateur videos and 1/4" tapes), even if they use the word 'professional' in their marketing, and genuine professional services that not only require real pro grade equipment and engineers, but can also be trusted with high value recordings.

.
Btw, I prefer to use the term archival transfer instead of digitisation, as in many cases the source material is already digital (DAT or DASH tapes, HDDs, optical or any other data storage formats), but they need to be transferred into the archive's modern (eg. LTO-based), future-proof system.

[Edited 6/15/25 9:36am]

From the long interesting video I've seen of what happens at Iron Mountain, and what I've seen from other services, it doesn't seem much different to me. Again, i'm not an expert.

I see the same (sort of) machines, same kind of reels.

Though I'm aware that service and interpretive professionalism obviously make the price.

Again, would be nice if someone could provide us with more detailed insight on the Prince stuff. going on.

Kares said:

Btw, I prefer to use the term archival transfer instead of digitisation, as in many cases the source material is already digital (DAT or DASH tapes, HDDs, optical or any other data storage formats), but they need to be transferred into the archive's modern (eg. LTO-based), future-proof system.

Yes, I use the term "digitize" loosely here for simplicity's sake, but internally we use different terms depending on the format (analog, digital, native files).