Distortion on 1999 CD
Jeff Smithpeters
I was playing my 1999 CD the other night through headphones and noticed
that "Little Red Corvette" in particular is suffused with distortion,
expecially on the vocal parts. I wondered if my CD player was messing up
for a second, and I even checked the CD for scratches. None.
I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this, and if anyone knows what
accounts for it.
Moon Raki
jef...@dancooks.com says...
it was an unfortunate glitch that exists on the masters for those
songs, and is not correctable.
the root of the problem was the equipment at prince's studio that
had been built recently inside his house.
just one of those thigs that happen ...
Mike Mayer
Jeff Smithpeters wrote:
>
> I was playing my 1999 CD the other night through headphones and noticed
> that "Little Red Corvette" in particular is suffused with distortion,
> expecially on the vocal parts. I wondered if my CD player was messing up
> for a second, and I even checked the CD for scratches. None.
>
> I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this, and if anyone knows what
> accounts for it.
Nope I agree, there is major distortion on this CD esp during LRC. Like
when the recording level is set to high. Its pretty painful...
Mike Mayer
Jarret Cooper
Jeff Smithpeters wrote:
>
> I was playing my 1999 CD the other night through headphones and noticed
> that "Little Red Corvette" in particular is suffused with distortion,
> expecially on the vocal parts. I wondered if my CD player was messing up
> for a second, and I even checked the CD for scratches. None.
>
> I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this, and if anyone knows what
> accounts for it.
That whole CD needs to be redone. The most annoying thing to me is
the huge change in signal level (read "volume drop") between DMSR
and Automatic.
By the way, anybody else cringe at hearing the mix of "1999" on "The
Hits"? **CRASH**...then it drops down to nothing.
j
c
Snoopy
> > I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this, and if anyone knows what
> > accounts for it.
i have some audio engineering background and when 1999 came out, two
of my instructors (major prince fans) agreed that while it was
produced well in regard to the artistic direction, the engineering of
the SOUNDS left alot to be desired. they also both felt that prince's
tape machines probably ran at 15 inches per second instead of the
normal 30 inches per second, accounting for the distortion.
by the way, this same distorted sound arises early in "if i was your
girlfriend", when he says the word "your" early in the song.
JuvenileHi
his same distorted sound arises early in "if i was your
girlfriend", when he says the word "your" early in the song.
But it sounds so cool on If I was U're Girlfiend. I think it was on
purpose there. One of my favorite sounding Prince tunes.
Lee
Gene Savage
In regards to the distortion (which I always felt was predominantly on the
vocals, predominantly in LRC), I was always under the impression it was
there on purpose, as an experimental effect. (If guitars can be run
through distortion boxes, why not voices, right?) Notice I didn't say I
LIKED the effect... :)
Listening to the CD was discouraging on a couple of fronts; one, being the
vinyl recording-like distortion which shows up in some form or other almost
all the way through; another being the lack of "crispness" or high
frequency response of the entire album (perhaps explained by your 15ips
theory), and the... dynamic instability"... of the recording for lack of
a better term. Indeed the individual tracks, and the final mixdown both
sound like they could benefit from some gentle compression. And yet the
recording sounds compressed in areas! So how do you explain it? Wrong
settings? Wrong box?
...Listening back to LRC right now, it almost sounds like the distortion is
a layered background vocal. Is that possible? It seems to show up only in
the chorus, and seems level independent. And GOOD NIGHT! the distortion
on that guitar solo! I don't mean the distortion box; I mean what sounds
like stereo vinyl distortion, or FM multipath distortion. Some of this
"style" of recording seemed to show up in The Black Album, too. Night &
day from LoveSexy, huh! :)
Wonder what it would take (besides an act of God) to get at the master
tracks and re-mix the album for a gold CD release. Wonder if that would
clean it up.
...Wonder if I should stop dreaming now... ;->
--
Snoopy <sto...@magicnet.net> wrote in article
<5agcaj$4qo$1...@comet3.magicnet.net>...
>
> > > I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this, and if anyone knows
what
> > > accounts for it.
>
> i have some audio engineering background and when 1999 came out, two
> of my instructors (major prince fans) agreed that while it was
> produced well in regard to the artistic direction, the engineering of
> the SOUNDS left alot to be desired. they also both felt that prince's
> tape machines probably ran at 15 inches per second instead of the
> normal 30 inches per second, accounting for the distortion.
>
> by the way, this same distorted sound arises early in "if i was your
dave
"Gene Savage" <sav...@ionet.net> wrote:
>In regards to the distortion (which I always felt was predominantly on the
>vocals, predominantly in LRC), I was always under the impression it was
>there on purpose, as an experimental effect. (If guitars can be run
>through distortion boxes, why not voices, right?) Notice I didn't say I
>LIKED the effect... :)
>Snoopy <sto...@magicnet.net> wrote in article
><5agcaj$4qo$1...@comet3.magicnet.net>...
>>
>> i have some audio engineering background and when 1999 came out, two
>> of my instructors (major prince fans) agreed that while it was
>> produced well in regard to the artistic direction, the engineering of
>> the SOUNDS left alot to be desired. they also both felt that prince's
>> tape machines probably ran at 15 inches per second instead of the
>> normal 30 inches per second, accounting for the distortion.
wow...i'm still trying to figger out what the tape is saying backwards
in "baby i'm a star".....
paulr...@gmail.com
> I was playing my 1999 CD the other night through headphones and noticed
> that "Little Red Corvette" in particular is suffused with distortion,
> expecially on the vocal parts. I wondered if my CD player was messing up
> for a second, and I even checked the CD for scratches. None.
>
> accounts for it.
For the most part the album sounds pretty good and clean, although you can hear an occasional bad clip, like a blown kick drum hit, some tape hiss, and some mixes where a track will build up too much midrange noise.
But LRC is a mess. There is grating, hissing "crispy" sounding distortion through the whole track. It's really a shame. The clarity and intelligibility of the vocals are badly damaged by this distortion.
If it was just clipped here and there, it might be possible to clean up using something like Ozone's clip repair. But I think it is on the source tracks.
I think some of the vocal tracks are really over-saturated to the point where they sound sibilant and sizzling. Whenever he hits a volume peak on the vocal, like an accented point in the phrase, it sounds unpleasantly crunchy.
The organ track also sounds pretty distorted to me, and maybe the guitar. It doesn't sound to me like the percussion tracks are the source of the problem, even though they are pretty loud and the track uses those big, fake-sounding electronic percussion slaps which are basically bursts of noise.
The track that follows, Delirious, has some of the same distortion, I think on the keyboard and vocals again, but it is not nearly as bad.
If they ever can remix it from the source tracks, it might be possible to EQ or notch filter the individual tracks that are damaged, and improve the overall mix a bit, although I don't think it can really be fixed.
It is possible some of the noise comes from a too-hot mastering job, in which case it could be improved with a remaster, but I don't think so.
It probably is not so noticeable on vinyl because the transfer to vinyl inherently rolled off some of the frequencies where the worst distortion is found.
ant...@gmail.com
iwebste...@gmail.com
> I was playing my 1999 CD the other night through headphones and noticed
> that "Little Red Corvette" in particular is suffused with distortion,
> expecially on the vocal parts. I wondered if my CD player was messing up
> for a second, and I even checked the CD for scratches. None.
>
> I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this, and if anyone knows what
> accounts for it.
The Ur-Vile
Ur-vile
ant...@gmail.com
lange...@gmail.com
In any regard, while (s)he likely won't see it, I just wanted to thank "ant...@gmail.com" (I'm unable to view their entire username for whatever reason). I can finally enjoy this catchy tune without cringing/apologizing to my speakers during the chorus!