He mastered the original vinyl. I suspect he didn't touch the original CD... I'm 95% sure it's a flat transfer, because the original vinyl sounds MUCH better than the original CD. More in line with the new edition.
I am not sure that in Prince’s case that would be a good idea considering the Purple Rain 2015 Prince-approved Paisley Park brickwalled extravaganza.
I must say, you're in the minority on that one! That's one of the most inconsistent CDs in my collection.
You say "in the minority" like it's a bad thing. I am sure there were many times Prince was told his sound was too odd, too different. Thank God he didn't worry about pleasing the majority. The new remaster sounds like something the majority would like, as it is more in line with what they are used to. You say the original is inconsistent. I say it's a wild, unique ride.
I am not sure anyone can compare Prince in 2015 to Prince in 1987. I guess then can, but it would be incredibly foolish.
Bernie's original LP cut is what I heard when I bought the album in 1987 and is not at all what is represented on the CD. And we all know what was going on in the 1980s when CDs were gaining popularity... while there were some great staff engineers like Barry Diament who did great work, there were also many unknown staff engineers who just did flat transfers. In the case of SOTT, it's almost certainly what happened. If Prince signed off on Bernie's mastering, it was for the vinyl, not the CD. So the answer to your question, "I think he mastered the original, right?" is: No, he did not master the original CD.
I tried to A-B my old and new CDs and ended up screwing up my system in the process. Will get back to you when I straighten the whole thing out.
I wasn’t trying to compare 1987 Prince with 2015 Prince. I was simply responding to your artist approved mastering comment. You said “Now, I am not saying his first mastering was right and the remaster is wrong, I am just pointing out that the sound of the remaster is Grundman's vision, without input from Prince, while the sound of the original was created via a collaboration between Prince and Grundman.” Perhaps you are simply trying to state that remasters are never a good idea.
Prince let Josh remaster Purple Rain, seemingly after being impressed by his work on HitNRun Phase One. Prince’s decisions on mastering were far from impeccable.
System fixed (not sure what I messed up) and I did some A-B’ing. @George P, I stand by what I said earlier. I prefer the amount of bass on the remaster to that of the original CD. And I never heard the original LP, as others here have. I’m just going by the sound of the two CDs. Later I’ll do the same thing with 1999. But, as I said before, the bass on the remaster was less to my liking with that one.
The SOTT remaster CDs sound vastly superior to the original CDs in my opinion. It’s barely a contest.
Yeah, the original SoTT CD is very thin. Sort of a harbinger of the preferred mastering sound of the late '80s thru at least the mid-'90s, which valued "clarity" over every other attribute. On the plus side, nothing was compressed to hell, since dynamics were also king. You can fix most of these discs with a bit of EQ if it really bugs you, unlike the compressed garbage we started getting circa 2000. Nothing can fix that mess.
Oh yeah for sure! Same with the 1999 remaster too, the low end being restored and the overall sound being much better EQ'd has given these amazing albums the digital amazingness they deserve in my opinion
Couldn't afford monster lp box so this gem will have to do. Spinning now. In snail mail today. 2 lp remastered 180 gram vinyl set.
Whoa! Amazon US has the CD version for $112. I can't imagine it going much cheaper. If you've been hemming & hawing, this may be the time... https://www.amazon.com/Sign-Times-S...fa8f0602f7889&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
And there's a "used" copy from Amazon Warehouse that's $102.58 shipped ("Missing shrink-wrap, activation codes for bonus online content may be missing or expired") so if you don't mind having a potentially less-than-mint copy, you can save a little money there.
This is boilerplate language. Probably to head off at the pass vinyl or gaming releases that came with download codes on release since they have no way of knowing if a returned bit of merch has had the code used or not.
Anybody got the new book “Prince and the Parade and Sign O' The Times Era Studio Sessions” by Duane Tudahl? Any good?
I’m a few chapters in. Really well done. Learning a lot about the recording of Romance 1600, which was done while on tour for Purple Rain.
