West Coast Connection Forum
DUBCC - Tha Connection => West Coast Classics => Topic started by: donfathaimmortal on December 31, 2011, 04:25:13 AM
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Tha Don Fatha sayz :
2012 gonna B the 20th anniversary of Death Row Records.
A special year for special plans :
CD RELEASES CONFIRMED :
- Two complilations of the most requested artists
- Unreleased Dogg Pound Gangstaz album
- Snoop Doggy Dogg Greatest Hits (with unreleased tracks)
- Possibly 2 other Death Row releases
VARIOUS :
- Major promotions throught out the year
- International projects from audio to video releases (documentaries...)
- Death Row rap rivals application (coming early 2012)
- Video complilations
(source : Private message from John Payne, Death Row Records CEO)
Press should start rolling out within the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
THA ELECTRICC CHAIR IZ STILL SMOCCIN !
(http://oi42.tinypic.com/35c4rqt.jpg)
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- Snoop Doggy Dogg Greatest Hits (with unreleased tracks)
again?!?!?!
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Looking forward to the DPG release the most.
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Dogg Pound Gangstaz album? As in everybody from DPG? I'd love to hear a compilation full of unreleased songs from the original Dogg Pound members.
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Sound great but what's that? An og unreleased project of DPG or random old tracks?
If they step their game up I wanna see album notes like when and where tracks were recorded and for what project...musicians involved. If it was a demo etc etc. Big C-Style sets standards on that.
Did the Snoop greatest hits already get rereleased in a boxset with doggystyle & tha doggfatha?
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hopefully these releases are nice, and properly mixed/mastered, and have unheard material
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Tha Don Fatha sayz :
2012 gonna B the 20th anniversary of Death Row Records.
A special year for special plans :
CD RELEASES CONFIRMED :
- Two complilations of the most requested artists
- Unreleased Dogg Pound Gangstaz album
- Snoop Doggy Dogg Greatest Hits (with unreleased tracks)
- Possibly 2 other Death Row releases
VARIOUS :
- Major promotions throught out the year
- International projects from audio to video releases (documentaries...)
- Death Row rap rivals application (coming early 2012)
- Video complilations
(source : Private message from John Payne, Death Row Records CEO)
Press should start rolling out within the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
Thanks for the info man but i'm pretty sure if John Payne sent you that in a private message he probably didnt want it to be known by everybody just yet. I wouldn't expect him to let you in on anymore info from now on since you posted it.
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Press should start rolling out within the next few weeks, so stay tuned for some confirmations.
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after the Crooked I n Kurupt fiasco, ill take everythin that is related to WideAwake wit a grain of salt.
wit "unreleased",, they mean --->> "unreleased but still available for download on the internet"
probly get 5 or 6 "new" songs at the most
that label is pathetic
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I would settle for some unreleased Daz and Kurupt from '92-'97
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- Snoop Doggy Dogg Greatest Hits (with unreleased tracks)
again?!?!?!
yeah, it's still death row
I would settle for some unreleased Daz and Kurupt from '92-'97
it could be some music that daz put out before
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great news.
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I hope they release more unreleased material. I'm not hardly about to buy Doggystyle & Tha Doggfather all over again in the year 2012.
For the record I brought "The Chronic" and "The Lost Sessions". I mean I might've returned "The Chronic" after I ripped "Smoke On" but I still brought it.
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that label is pathetic
Canadian incompetency at its best my friend.
By the way Death Row records was founded in 1991 as far as know, so nice try to create another myth but it don't take. A label founded with Vanilla Ice's money let's never forget please hehe
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So are they ever going to do a Pac project? I thought that was one of the bigger draw cards of buying the label. Looking forward to the Dogg Pound project as long as it's mixed in proper quality. After buying "Lost Sessions" and hearing the shit quality on that every release is a download before buying type of scenario now.
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I a atke some unreleased dpg.but if they wonna make some money,they need 2 released a unreleased 2pac album.
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snoop doggy's greatest hits again, .......funny
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Tha Don Fatha sayz :
2012 gonna B the 20th anniversary of Death Row Records.
A special year for special plans :
CD RELEASES CONFIRMED :
- Two complilations of the most requested artists
- Unreleased Dogg Pound Gangstaz album
- Snoop Doggy Dogg Greatest Hits (with unreleased tracks)
- Possibly 2 other Death Row releases
VARIOUS :
- Major promotions throught out the year
- International projects from audio to video releases (documentaries...)
- Death Row rap rivals application (coming early 2012)
- Video complilations
(source : Private message from John Payne, Death Row Records CEO)
Press should start rolling out within the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
Thanks for the info man but i'm pretty sure if John Payne sent you that in a private message he probably didnt want it to be known by everybody just yet. I wouldn't expect him to let you in on anymore info from now on since you posted it.
TOP SECRET INFO LEAK: a bunch of garbage and a dpg album with probably no unheard material will make their way to amazon.com for 2 days on a glorified cd-r before they go out of print and wide awake folds.
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yippee. a great fucking label , more collections and shit.
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the slost session was aight.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5b/Snoop_DeathRowSessions1.jpg)
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They need to release some Nate Dogg.
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Wideawake releases always look at least decent on paper but they've yet to give us one that actually delivered so it's hard to even get remotely excited about one at this point.
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Wideawake releases always look at least decent on paper but they've yet to give us one that actually delivered so it's hard to even get remotely excited about one at this point.
i think the best WA release is the LBC Crew album
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They need to release some Nate Dogg.
I thought that Nate Dogg took most of his records with him when he left Death Row.
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Wideawake releases always look at least decent on paper but they've yet to give us one that actually delivered so it's hard to even get remotely excited about one at this point.
i think the best WA release is the LBC Crew album
funnily enough the Efrain remaster shits all over the official release. WA just haven't got any idea of how to handle the business.
the Danny Boy release was a good one on paper and the potential was there, but again the sound quality was terrible. they use the excuse that the DAT tapes are in poor condition etc, but that doesn't change the fact that a forum cat (albeit one with some reasonable equipment) was able to take one of their releases and make it sound significantly better. that's shameful.
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Wideawake releases always look at least decent on paper but they've yet to give us one that actually delivered so it's hard to even get remotely excited about one at this point.
i think the best WA release is the LBC Crew album
funnily enough the Efrain remaster shits all over the official release. WA just haven't got any idea of how to handle the business.
the Danny Boy release was a good one on paper and the potential was there, but again the sound quality was terrible. they use the excuse that the DAT tapes are in poor condition etc, but that doesn't change the fact that a forum cat (albeit one with some reasonable equipment) was able to take one of their releases and make it sound significantly better. that's shameful.
nonetheless they release material which would`ve stayed unheard forever. so i still support them in hope that they don't repeat another worthless album like street scholars again. of course the quality should be better but atleast they deliver something for the die hard fans
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i'm agree with giezus !
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Wideawake releases always look at least decent on paper but they've yet to give us one that actually delivered so it's hard to even get remotely excited about one at this point.
i think the best WA release is the LBC Crew album
funnily enough the Efrain remaster shits all over the official release. WA just haven't got any idea of how to handle the business.
the Danny Boy release was a good one on paper and the potential was there, but again the sound quality was terrible. they use the excuse that the DAT tapes are in poor condition etc, but that doesn't change the fact that a forum cat (albeit one with some reasonable equipment) was able to take one of their releases and make it sound significantly better. that's shameful.
nonetheless they release material which would`ve stayed unheard forever. so i still support them in hope that they don't repeat another worthless album like street scholars again. of course the quality should be better but atleast they deliver something for the die hard fans
true say. but the downside is because the music will probably never be restored properly now. a lot better than nothing, but frustrating they don't know what they're doing with the masters.
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They need to release some Nate Dogg.
I thought that Nate Dogg took most of his records with him when he left Death Row.
He took the solo material he was working one but I'm sure they got a couple of hooks in the vaults. Maybe they just can't release them.
& somebody in here said their was unreleased Nate Dogg songs listed on the Court papers regarding DR's auction.
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They need to release some Nate Dogg.
I thought that Nate Dogg took most of his records with him when he left Death Row.
He took the solo material he was working one but I'm sure they got a couple of hooks in the vaults. Maybe they just can't release them.
& somebody in here said their was unreleased Nate Dogg songs listed on the Court papers regarding DR's auction.
Yeah, i'm sure they do. Hopefully they can release the material. Does anybody have the court papers?
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Tha Don Fatha sayz :
Nate Dogg unreleased material from the auction list :
nate dogg - be real 10/29/95
nate dogg - boom, boom, boom
nate dogg - dat's gangsta
nate dogg, daz - i thought u knew
nate dogg - i want you
nate dogg - last time
nate dogg - may be Christmas
nate dogg - million man
nate dogg - no more 40s
nate dogg - something's wrong
nate dogg - untitled
nate dogg - untitled 2
nate dogg - untitled 3
nate dogg - untitled 1/18/95
nate dogg - untitled (slow song) 8/28/96
Plus :
snoop, nate dogg, warren g - dope slang
snoop, kurupt, nate dogg - every single day (original)
dogg pound, nate dogg - untitled
(http://oi41.tinypic.com/20i711c.jpg)
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Tha Don Fatha sayz
snoop, kurupt, nate dogg - every single day (original)
Kurupt's verse on this :o
hopefully not the edited version
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They need to release some Nate Dogg.
I thought that Nate Dogg took most of his records with him when he left Death Row.
He took the solo material he was working one but I'm sure they got a couple of hooks in the vaults. Maybe they just can't release them.
& somebody in here said their was unreleased Nate Dogg songs listed on the Court papers regarding DR's auction.
Yeah, i'm sure they do. Hopefully they can release the material. Does anybody have the court papers?
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Can somebody tell me if this is official or fanmade?
http://rekinco.blogspot.com/2012/01/eastwood-escape-from-death-row-2012.html
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Can somebody tell me if this is official or fanmade?
http://rekinco.blogspot.com/2012/01/eastwood-escape-from-death-row-2012.html
FANMADE::::::::
Eastwood works with Master P now.
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Tha Don Fatha sayz :
Nate Dogg unreleased material from the auction list :
nate dogg - be real 10/29/95
nate dogg - boom, boom, boom
nate dogg - dat's gangsta
nate dogg, daz - i thought u knew
nate dogg - i want you
nate dogg - last time
nate dogg - may be Christmas
nate dogg - million man
nate dogg - no more 40s
nate dogg - something's wrong
nate dogg - untitled
nate dogg - untitled 2
nate dogg - untitled 3
nate dogg - untitled 1/18/95
nate dogg - untitled (slow song) 8/28/96
Plus :
snoop, nate dogg, warren g - dope slang
snoop, kurupt, nate dogg - every single day (original)
dogg pound, nate dogg - untitled
(http://oi41.tinypic.com/20i711c.jpg)
Man if that's true then that's nice! What they're waiting on to release some ?!! Shit they even got enough songs to do a complete album!! Man they better wake up!
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Word. They need to get a deal signed with Nate's estate.
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I thought you knew by Nate Dogg and Daz leaked in low quality and its really nothing special.
beat is completely unfinished, i'm pretty sure every lyric on the song was reused in another song.
nothing against nate and daz - clearly just a prototype song that was reassembled into better songs.
so is the rule NO dre beats anymore? even if there are no dre vocals on the songs?
i mean, this does not have to ruin the releases. i'm sure there are enough fantastic beats in the vaults by daz, barney, sneed, and lt hutton. kevyn lewis was talented too.
the sam sneed leak gave me hope that there is still gold in the vault. barney sounded like he was all over the keys on that album. surprisingly, it was sam and drauma going back and forth all day, not very much j-flexx.
but i digress.... there is still probably gold in that vault. whether they release it and/or clean up the sound quality is up to them.
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Wideawake releases always look at least decent on paper but they've yet to give us one that actually delivered so it's hard to even get remotely excited about one at this point.
i think the best WA release is the LBC Crew album
funnily enough the Efrain remaster shits all over the official release. WA just haven't got any idea of how to handle the business.
the Danny Boy release was a good one on paper and the potential was there, but again the sound quality was terrible. they use the excuse that the DAT tapes are in poor condition etc, but that doesn't change the fact that a forum cat (albeit one with some reasonable equipment) was able to take one of their releases and make it sound significantly better. that's shameful.
nonetheless they release material which would`ve stayed unheard forever. so i still support them in hope that they don't repeat another worthless album like street scholars again. of course the quality should be better but atleast they deliver something for the die hard fans
Efrain did such a good job of the LBC album they should just pay him to fix shit up, fly him out for a couple of weeks. Whoever is handling the mixing / mastering over there hasn't got a clue
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nonetheless they release material which would`ve stayed unheard forever. so i still support them in hope that they don't repeat another worthless album like street scholars again. of course the quality should be better but atleast they deliver something for the die hard fans
Sorry but I don't share your enthusiasm for mediocre presentation. It's not some kind of "reward" for the fans to pay money for a product that was put together cheaply. Assuming the rumors of them not being able to put out any Dre production from here on out are true. They had one chance to legally release "Doggystyle" and those other Dre tracks and they did it through a half-assed mixing job so they could save a few bucks. They bought the rights to the entire Death Row catalog and they can't even throw some money into actually making the shit sound good?
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nonetheless they release material which would`ve stayed unheard forever. so i still support them in hope that they don't repeat another worthless album like street scholars again. of course the quality should be better but atleast they deliver something for the die hard fans
Sorry but I don't share your enthusiasm for mediocre presentation. It's not some kind of "reward" for the fans to pay money for a product that was put together cheaply. Assuming the rumors of them not being able to put out any Dre production from here on out are true. They had one chance to legally release "Doggystyle" and those other Dre tracks and they did it through a half-assed mixing job so they could save a few bucks. They bought the rights to the entire Death Row catalog and they can't even throw some money into actually making the shit sound good?
I'm not making any excuses, but...
Sorry this is just simply a bad investment. I think at this point it is just trying to keep the losses at a minimum. People just don't buy rap cd's anymore, especially old death row material...that is just the way it is. I mean the reality is that the biggest fan base of this music product...they are all over the internet and everyone of them knows how to get it for free. The only people who will buy it are those who really want the hard copy in their collection, or the few who really feel like they should support wide awake.
they throw some more money into getting a better mixing/mastering job, its not like they will have some huge increase in sales. It will increase sales to an extent but I doubt it would even cover the extra costs of the better mixing/mastering.
Don't get me wrong, I really want the music to sound better, but I don't think it will happen unless some sound engineer decides to volunteer his time. Either that or they don't care about making profit, and they will pay someone and lose more money just to keep the music alive. I doubt that will happen. That is just the reality of the situtation.
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They should hook up a Bluray with all the videos HD.
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I'm not making any excuses, but...
Sorry this is just simply a bad investment. I think at this point it is just trying to keep the losses at a minimum. People just don't buy rap cd's anymore, especially old death row material...that is just the way it is. I mean the reality is that the biggest fan base of this music product...they are all over the internet and everyone of them knows how to get it for free. The only people who will buy it are those who really want the hard copy in their collection, or the few who really feel like they should support wide awake.
they throw some more money into getting a better mixing/mastering job, its not like they will have some huge increase in sales. It will increase sales to an extent but I doubt it would even cover the extra costs of the better mixing/mastering.
Don't get me wrong, I really want the music to sound better, but I don't think it will happen unless some sound engineer decides to volunteer his time. Either that or they don't care about making profit, and they will pay someone and lose more money just to keep the music alive. I doubt that will happen. That is just the reality of the situtation.
The reality of the situation is they paid to buy a music catalog. It is not a bad investment to pay someone to mix the music right so the beat doesn't drown out the vocals. As bad as music sales are, there is still money in established material and with the right marketing, this could have gone on over pretty well. If it is not profitable to press CD's up, you don't do it at all. If you're going to do it and put promotion behind it, the music should be held to a certain quality expectation. Regardless of CD sales, by buying the catalog, they own the rights to everything Death Row. They're getting the publishing points on all those songs and albums. They can put out calenders, T-shirts, whatever the fuck they want with label logos and artist likenesses. Any time a movie wants to use music from that era, they get paid. Any time an artist samples production or song lyrics, that's a publishing check. With any reasonablly intelligent business person at the helm, this label should be making profit without even having to touch the unreleased stuff.
The mixing and mastering is less about increasing sales as it is satisfying the customers who already bought it. Is it coincidental that after the three big releases (Chronic Re-Lit, Snoop: Lost Sessions, DR Box Set), their releases went from Best Buy end caps to not being found in nearly any major retailers anywhere? Their stuff sounds like corner bodega CD-R bootleg stuff. If they were really trying to cut costs, they could go for the xerox black and white computer paper covers with misspelled song names. But then who would buy it? Is anyone seeing where I'm going with this? If they can afford the kind of packaging and artwork design they put into Relit and the Ultimate Death Row Collection, they can throw a few bucks into finding someone who knows how to make the ACTUAL MUSIC sound right. Why does the version of LBC Crew I got for free on this message board sound way better than the one I paid $15 for from the people who run a million-dollar company? Is it safe to assume that the majority of people on this board would rather have physical copies of these albums for the pretty artwork as opposed to an acceptable CDQ version of the music?
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They should hook up a Bluray with all the videos HD.
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Tha Don Fatha sayz :
^ Like Jimmy H. said, Widewake own & manage a catalog which contains West Coast classics and a famous Rap brand : Death Row.
Happy 20th B-Day Death Row, tha electricc chair iz still smoccin.
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I haven't bought any of their releases in a long long time.
I would have gladly paid money for ALL their stuff, had the sound been on point. They make a bunch of BS excuses that they made a promise to the fans all those years ago that they would be releasing the material "untouched", untampered with etc etc.
Fact is, they should have released the nice sounding, properly mixed and mastered material on CD to stores and online, and put up the "untouched" material for download on their website or forum.
I'm not about to lay down and overlook quality issues from a company that will release the material because they're the only legit company that can do so.... No way, if no more material comes out, then fine... There are others out there who could buy it, and there are buying groups, and many other ways to get the material out. I WILL NOT be blackmailed into buying terrible quality product. It's 2012, the line is a lot closer, the competition more fierce than ever before. If they want people to buy they need to put out the best sounding quality product that they possibly can. How hard is it to understand??? It doesn't cost as much as you people think to make make these album tracks sound better. I'm also sure they're aware of have been made aware of their lack of quality, and horrible sound on their product. They've had plenty of time and opportunity to buck up their ideas.
My opinion therefore is that they obviously couldn't care about obtaining our business, re-building their reputation as a legitimate music company, and retaining what little fan base they have still buying their crap, so why should we even care???
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Can somebody tell me if this is official or fanmade?
http://rekinco.blogspot.com/2012/01/eastwood-escape-from-death-row-2012.html
FANMADE::::::::
Eastwood works with Master P now.
Fanmade because Eastwood works with Master P now or fanmade because it's not official? ::) lol
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Can somebody tell me if this is official or fanmade?
http://rekinco.blogspot.com/2012/01/eastwood-escape-from-death-row-2012.html
FANMADE::::::::
Eastwood works with Master P now.
Fanmade because Eastwood works with Master P now or fanmade because it's not official? ::) lol
Tha Don Fatha sayz :
Fanmade cuz :
- Tha Row material recycled
- the cover...
- it's fanmade lol :laugh:
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so is the rule NO dre beats anymore? even if there are no dre vocals on the songs?
I thought they couldn't release songs that has vocals from him.
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Tha Don Fatha postz :
https://www.youtube.com/v/Z1TVBvjdCtM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1TVBvjdCtM)
John Payne new interview 2day.
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Doesn't address the quality issues :-X
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Did Jewell Ever Drop That Album!?
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they soft duke...this is how i see deathrow now.
(http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6032/granyrow.jpg)
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I'm not making any excuses, but...
Sorry this is just simply a bad investment. I think at this point it is just trying to keep the losses at a minimum. People just don't buy rap cd's anymore, especially old death row material...that is just the way it is. I mean the reality is that the biggest fan base of this music product...they are all over the internet and everyone of them knows how to get it for free. The only people who will buy it are those who really want the hard copy in their collection, or the few who really feel like they should support wide awake.
they throw some more money into getting a better mixing/mastering job, its not like they will have some huge increase in sales. It will increase sales to an extent but I doubt it would even cover the extra costs of the better mixing/mastering.
Don't get me wrong, I really want the music to sound better, but I don't think it will happen unless some sound engineer decides to volunteer his time. Either that or they don't care about making profit, and they will pay someone and lose more money just to keep the music alive. I doubt that will happen. That is just the reality of the situtation.
The reality of the situation is they paid to buy a music catalog. It is not a bad investment to pay someone to mix the music right so the beat doesn't drown out the vocals. As bad as music sales are, there is still money in established material and with the right marketing, this could have gone on over pretty well. If it is not profitable to press CD's up, you don't do it at all. If you're going to do it and put promotion behind it, the music should be held to a certain quality expectation. Regardless of CD sales, by buying the catalog, they own the rights to everything Death Row. They're getting the publishing points on all those songs and albums. They can put out calenders, T-shirts, whatever the fuck they want with label logos and artist likenesses. Any time a movie wants to use music from that era, they get paid. Any time an artist samples production or song lyrics, that's a publishing check. With any reasonablly intelligent business person at the helm, this label should be making profit without even having to touch the unreleased stuff.
The mixing and mastering is less about increasing sales as it is satisfying the customers who already bought it. Is it coincidental that after the three big releases (Chronic Re-Lit, Snoop: Lost Sessions, DR Box Set), their releases went from Best Buy end caps to not being found in nearly any major retailers anywhere? Their stuff sounds like corner bodega CD-R bootleg stuff. If they were really trying to cut costs, they could go for the xerox black and white computer paper covers with misspelled song names. But then who would buy it? Is anyone seeing where I'm going with this? If they can afford the kind of packaging and artwork design they put into Relit and the Ultimate Death Row Collection, they can throw a few bucks into finding someone who knows how to make the ACTUAL MUSIC sound right. Why does the version of LBC Crew I got for free on this message board sound way better than the one I paid $15 for from the people who run a million-dollar company? Is it safe to assume that the majority of people on this board would rather have physical copies of these albums for the pretty artwork as opposed to an acceptable CDQ version of the music?
If it is that profitable of a business then why did they go bankrupt in the first place? Sorry, but I don't think there are lines of people ready to buy a deathrow calendar or t shirt. And Its not like they are making a ton of money off publishing by songs getting put in movies or other artists sampling their music. Again, if that were the case then the company wouldn't have gone bankrupt.
It doesn't matter what the company wants to do or what fans want. There simply is not enough customer base for them to sink more money into some unreleased material.
They very well could not even have enough cash flow to pay a quality person to do the mixing/mastering. I would bet anything that this company has lost money on every release.
I absolutely love the LBC crew album. I have wanted that album more than any other album. But I'm realistic...I don't care if they got the best sound engineer in the world to mix/master that album...it just is not going to add that many more sales. The customer base just isn't there, and for the small customer base that is there...well they can easily just get the music for free rather than pay for it.
The company is a sinking ship. It is not profitable, and I bet they file bankruptcy this year.
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I'm not making any excuses, but...
Sorry this is just simply a bad investment. I think at this point it is just trying to keep the losses at a minimum. People just don't buy rap cd's anymore, especially old death row material...that is just the way it is. I mean the reality is that the biggest fan base of this music product...they are all over the internet and everyone of them knows how to get it for free. The only people who will buy it are those who really want the hard copy in their collection, or the few who really feel like they should support wide awake.
they throw some more money into getting a better mixing/mastering job, its not like they will have some huge increase in sales. It will increase sales to an extent but I doubt it would even cover the extra costs of the better mixing/mastering.
Don't get me wrong, I really want the music to sound better, but I don't think it will happen unless some sound engineer decides to volunteer his time. Either that or they don't care about making profit, and they will pay someone and lose more money just to keep the music alive. I doubt that will happen. That is just the reality of the situtation.
The reality of the situation is they paid to buy a music catalog. It is not a bad investment to pay someone to mix the music right so the beat doesn't drown out the vocals. As bad as music sales are, there is still money in established material and with the right marketing, this could have gone on over pretty well. If it is not profitable to press CD's up, you don't do it at all. If you're going to do it and put promotion behind it, the music should be held to a certain quality expectation. Regardless of CD sales, by buying the catalog, they own the rights to everything Death Row. They're getting the publishing points on all those songs and albums. They can put out calenders, T-shirts, whatever the fuck they want with label logos and artist likenesses. Any time a movie wants to use music from that era, they get paid. Any time an artist samples production or song lyrics, that's a publishing check. With any reasonablly intelligent business person at the helm, this label should be making profit without even having to touch the unreleased stuff.
The mixing and mastering is less about increasing sales as it is satisfying the customers who already bought it. Is it coincidental that after the three big releases (Chronic Re-Lit, Snoop: Lost Sessions, DR Box Set), their releases went from Best Buy end caps to not being found in nearly any major retailers anywhere? Their stuff sounds like corner bodega CD-R bootleg stuff. If they were really trying to cut costs, they could go for the xerox black and white computer paper covers with misspelled song names. But then who would buy it? Is anyone seeing where I'm going with this? If they can afford the kind of packaging and artwork design they put into Relit and the Ultimate Death Row Collection, they can throw a few bucks into finding someone who knows how to make the ACTUAL MUSIC sound right. Why does the version of LBC Crew I got for free on this message board sound way better than the one I paid $15 for from the people who run a million-dollar company? Is it safe to assume that the majority of people on this board would rather have physical copies of these albums for the pretty artwork as opposed to an acceptable CDQ version of the music?
If it is that profitable of a business then why did they go bankrupt in the first place? Sorry, but I don't think there are lines of people ready to buy a deathrow calendar or t shirt. And Its not like they are making a ton of money off publishing by songs getting put in movies or other artists sampling their music. Again, if that were the case then the company wouldn't have gone bankrupt.
It doesn't matter what the company wants to do or what fans want. There simply is not enough customer base for them to sink more money into some unreleased material.
They very well could not even have enough cash flow to pay a quality person to do the mixing/mastering. I would bet anything that this company has lost money on every release.
I absolutely love the LBC crew album. I have wanted that album more than any other album. But I'm realistic...I don't care if they got the best sound engineer in the world to mix/master that album...it just is not going to add that many more sales. The customer base just isn't there, and for the small customer base that is there...well they can easily just get the music for free rather than pay for it.
The company is a sinking ship. It is not profitable, and I bet they file bankruptcy this year.
agreed. i dont see much interest in leftover death row material in the year 2012. i think its mostly just this board that has the issue with the sound quality. if nobody said anything i wouldnt have noticed and im willing to bet your average consumer is like me. that said its a completely valid complaint.
and also agreed about lbc crew album. my most wanted album ever.
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I'm not making any excuses, but...
Sorry this is just simply a bad investment. I think at this point it is just trying to keep the losses at a minimum. People just don't buy rap cd's anymore, especially old death row material...that is just the way it is. I mean the reality is that the biggest fan base of this music product...they are all over the internet and everyone of them knows how to get it for free. The only people who will buy it are those who really want the hard copy in their collection, or the few who really feel like they should support wide awake.
they throw some more money into getting a better mixing/mastering job, its not like they will have some huge increase in sales. It will increase sales to an extent but I doubt it would even cover the extra costs of the better mixing/mastering.
Don't get me wrong, I really want the music to sound better, but I don't think it will happen unless some sound engineer decides to volunteer his time. Either that or they don't care about making profit, and they will pay someone and lose more money just to keep the music alive. I doubt that will happen. That is just the reality of the situtation.
The reality of the situation is they paid to buy a music catalog. It is not a bad investment to pay someone to mix the music right so the beat doesn't drown out the vocals. As bad as music sales are, there is still money in established material and with the right marketing, this could have gone on over pretty well. If it is not profitable to press CD's up, you don't do it at all. If you're going to do it and put promotion behind it, the music should be held to a certain quality expectation. Regardless of CD sales, by buying the catalog, they own the rights to everything Death Row. They're getting the publishing points on all those songs and albums. They can put out calenders, T-shirts, whatever the fuck they want with label logos and artist likenesses. Any time a movie wants to use music from that era, they get paid. Any time an artist samples production or song lyrics, that's a publishing check. With any reasonablly intelligent business person at the helm, this label should be making profit without even having to touch the unreleased stuff.
The mixing and mastering is less about increasing sales as it is satisfying the customers who already bought it. Is it coincidental that after the three big releases (Chronic Re-Lit, Snoop: Lost Sessions, DR Box Set), their releases went from Best Buy end caps to not being found in nearly any major retailers anywhere? Their stuff sounds like corner bodega CD-R bootleg stuff. If they were really trying to cut costs, they could go for the xerox black and white computer paper covers with misspelled song names. But then who would buy it? Is anyone seeing where I'm going with this? If they can afford the kind of packaging and artwork design they put into Reality and the Ultimate Death Row Collection, they can throw a few bucks into finding someone who knows how to make the ACTUAL MUSIC sound right. Why does the version of LBC Crew I got for free on this message board sound way better than the one I paid $15 for from the people who run a million-dollar company? Is it safe to assume that the majority of people on this board would rather have physical copies of these albums for the pretty artwork as opposed to an acceptable CDQ version of the music?
If it is that profitable of a business then why did they go bankrupt in the first place? Sorry, but I don't think there are lines of people ready to buy a deathrow calendar or t shirt. And Its not like they are making a ton of money off publishing by songs getting put in movies or other artists sampling their music. Again, if that were the case then the company wouldn't have gone bankrupt.
It doesn't matter what the company wants to do or what fans want. There simply is not enough customer base for them to sink more money into some unreleased material.
They very well could not even have enough cash flow to pay a quality person to do the mixing/mastering. I would bet anything that this company has lost money on every release.
I absolutely love the LBC crew album. I have wanted that album more than any other album. But I'm realistic...I don't care if they got the best sound engineer in the world to mix/master that album...it just is not going to add that many more sales. The customer base just isn't there, and for the small customer base that is there...well they can easily just get the music for free rather than pay for it.
The company is a sinking ship. It is not profitable, and I bet they file bankruptcy this year.
agreed. i dont see much interest in leftover death row material in the year 2012. i think its mostly just this board that has the issue with the sound quality. if nobody said anything i wouldn't have noticed and im willing to bet your average consumer is like me. that said its a completely valid complaint.
and also agreed about lbc crew album. my most wanted album ever.
Anybody who listened to Snoop's Lost Sessions album (The companies first "new" release whichever way you look at it) had volume differences all over the album, some songs (most) sound like they came directly off a 1998 degraded bootleg that was ripped from a dusty cassette tape. This was the first of the many problems, and turned what was a potentially new and exiting company - One which initially advertised it's pledge to use all the best and future technology for it's sound, into an official low rent bootleg company avoided by fans, business partners and assisting artists alike.
Some say the bad sound quality doesn't matter. But for sound professionals like Snoop and Dr Dre, it most definitely does. They don't want their name put onto anything other than 100%, as it damages their own credibility and image. So those promosing relationships with the biggest names of Death Row were pretty much destroyed with Chronic Re-Lit, and Lost Sessions. A HUGE loss to the company. Then of course - the fan base they were building fell off pretty quickly after all the consistent sound muck ups, mistaken credit inlays, missing vocals, question marks at producer names, and so on and so on.
They had plenty of opportunity to resolve the sound issues, they even had chances to build bridges with the smaller scale artists such as Crooked I, and Kurupt, but damaged those relationships too, by firing out material of Crooked I's that 99.9% of the fans already had that he didn't want put out, so they pretty much messed up big time with that one.
And the biggy, is when they started to bite the hand that fed them, by going after New Solutions Capital Inc, the company that gave them the money (or most of it) to buy the catalogue at the start
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What they should have done was
1) Set up web-team & street-team volunteers, and pay for Magazine and social networking ad space
2) re-introduce the existing catalouge with the new WideAwake stamp in consecutive order on a weekly basis (with additional bonus songs relating to that spesific release/or recorded around the same time as that release) with audio improvements, additional inlay pictures/artwork
3) Offer licensing & sampling at cheap rates to encourage new, modern and relevant artists to use their material
4) Build bridges, and relationships with former artists, producers, and general studio staff
5) Sign new acts
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They can say what they want but none of that shit was pulled from the masters directly. Yeah it came from the masters alright, then dubbed to a cassette back in the day and ripped later on in shittier quality. I'm getting tired of the bootlegging shell game. Give me the fucking music in crystal clear quality and I'll give you money. If not, fuck off, it ain't '97 anymore.
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what the hell is smoccin ?
wideawake should at least master their products right , the Efrain version of the LBC Crew album shits on the retail cd