I mean in terms of sound quality.

I've been listening to old Mj songs(not remastered) and there are sonically on a different level to Prince.

It's a damn shame Prince didn't care about the sound quality and didn't engineer his albums properly.

I guess quincy made sure he had engineers that knew what they were doing on MJ's stuff.

are you listening to Prince Cd's? QJ is better producer than Prince

Also have to say that the sound quality on the remastered 'off the wall' and 'thriller' (the only 2 i've got) is absoultely awesome - quite possibly the best remasters i've ever heard....

No contest, Quincy was phenominal, not only on MJ's albums, but on everyone else he produced
his mixes are pristine.
but i forgive prince because i don't think its a matter of caring about sound quality, i think its extremely hard for him because he's doing everything in the studio...
and i know after you finish recording and mixing down everything by yourself, you don't really give the mastering job your full ability, Thats why p just gives it to a mastering firm to do it...
though you lose some creativity, in the end process, its a lighter load, and ur able to churn out a cd quicker...
Quincy had alot of help during that time period, so he could fully concentrate on mastering and sound levels,
another observation would be that Michaels albums were essentially alot louder than p's
because Quincy was known for using little headroom when it comes to Db's
all of P's albums in that era are extremely low essentially because of alot of headroom being used in the mixes,

andyd said:

mikek1 said:[quote]Why does MJ's 79-87 work sound SUPERIOR to Prince's[quote]
There's variation in the sound quality of every album ever recorded. Is there a particular reason you chose two specific artists and a particular time frame? Of course not.

Adisa said:[quote]mikek1 said:[quote]Why does MJ's 79-87 work sound SUPERIOR to Prince'

s

what's wrong with you?

I choice those two artist because i have them in my hi fi as i type so i'm comparing the sound.

EmbattledWarrior said:

Yes you're right on the money!
I appreciate insightful comments instead of childish abuse; thankyou.

so this is less about Mj and has everything to do with Q.

No doubt the main downfall of princes backcatalogue is the quality of the sound - its just awful. I think prince is a great producer, but sometimes im listening to a song and the mix is just shitty. I particularly think about 1999 the album with this as i believe this is where prince took a big step up as a producer, and i think it was a learning curve from there. That album in particular though sounds like it never acheived the ambition it had sonically - as his skill sprobably fell short at this time.

CrozzaUK said:

if only eddie kramar recorded this album

PRINCE & WB PLEAAAAASE REMASTER YOUR CATALOGUE
[Edited 11/1/06 7:51am]

mikek1 said:

If only.

mikek1 said:

So you're going to recreate this thread everytime you have some cd's in your hi fi?

EmbattledWarrior said:

I'm an engineer and study recording so I'll just clarify a couple of things.

Bruce Swedien is the genius engineer responsible for all the MJ records from Off the Wall on...
He is the reason for the pristine recordings and mixes on MJ's stuff. Quincey's not a tech guy, purely creative. I think you will find Bruce Swediens name come up on a few other quality projects produced by Quincey too.
Also, certainly none of the MJ albums were mastered by Quincey and they were not mastered by Bruce either, all were done at dedicated mastering facilities which is the case on 99% of big budget records.

Mastering is often way overated, the key here is Bruce Swediens recording and mixing work. In fact, many albums aren't even affected sonically by mastering because due to being well mixed by a top engineer, they don't require any balancing EQ etc.

In terms of the contributing factors to making a sonically brilliant record, I would put it like this: 50% recording, 45% mixing and 5% mastering.

For lesser, not so great sounding records this could vary and the mixing and mastering could have a larger affect on the final sound quality.

Bruce Swedien =

nd33 said:

I'm with ya.

carlcranshaw said:

MICHAEL IS THE KING OF POP

enough said

TotalAlisa said:

TonyVanDam said:

mikek1 said:

I think WB would be up for it, but you know about the antipathyt Prince has towards his former record company, so it won't happen in the forseeable future. God knows they need it. They all sound dreadful, with Dirty Work,Controversy and 1999 on top of the slag heap in terms of sound quality.

Perhaps the best thing to do in lieu of official remasters being available would be to do what an enterprising Russian company did with The Rolling Stones 60s back catalogue. They tracked down mint copies of the original albums, recorded them onto hard disc and "digitally remastered" the albums. The results were very impressive - copies of the albums which sounded a million times better than the official Abkco CDs doing the rounds at the time. The popularity of said discs among fans prompted The Stones and Abkco to agree to remaster the entire 60s back catalogue for SACD.

Not that you can expect Prince to react that positively to a negative situation.
[Edited 11/6/06 5:58am]

SOTT sounds the worst to me.

Cloudbuster said:

what about parade, for you and 1999?

mikek1 said:

None sound quite as poor as SOTT to my ears. But everything up to and including Diamonds & Pearls needs tweaking.

TotalAlisa said:

AMEN!!

Cloudbuster said:

I agree but i think PR, BATMAN and especially GB are o.k.

mikek1 said:

Okay at best. But put them up against, for example, The Gold Experience and the difference in sound is obvious.

Strangely "Prince" (1979) is the best in terms of soundquality...

BeatsPerMinute said:

You have been reading my mind; my thoughts exactly!