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Over two dozen previously unreleased songs being auctioned off!

They've basicly answered some questions in the item description of "Circles"

This 2-inch master tape features an unreleased session titled “Circles” and is dated 6/23/94.

This master tape originally came from the storage unit of The Hit Factory. The auction house has not listened to it as we do not have the proper equipment so we cannot say if there are vocals, and how long the vocals may be.
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note: tracks #21 & #22 make me wonder whether it's a work mix with vocals
 
Fuzball said:
They've basicly answered some questions in the item description of "Circles"


dec23-546c_lg.jpeg



note: tracks #21 & #22 make me wonder whether it's a work mix with vocals
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My main bug @Fuzball been digging in the dirt. I see. :ROFLMAO: You could have at least cleaned the specimen up before you brought it back to base
 
Derek1984 said:
Talk about a total gamble. Could hit the jackpot or could just be a bunch of writers demos/instrumentals/no MJ vocals.
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The fact that we never heard about these song titles before this auction and that the HIStory sessions are rumoured to have very few outtakes lead me to believe that there's no MJ vocals on these and these are just writer's demos or instrumentals
 
Does "vocal slave" means Lost in love and Starlight have vocals?
 
Is Willing and Waiting an outtake for HIStory? Maybe I am wrong. It's hard to keep track of these things. If it was, surprised this title doesn't show up here.
 
Derek1984 said:
Is Willing and Waiting an outtake for HIStory? Maybe I am wrong. It's hard to keep track of these things. If it was, surprised this title doesn't show up here.
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Yup, from mid-1994. No confirmation on whether or not MJ recorded it, though it’s a pretty safe assumption he didn’t. Allegedly he’s buried in the background vocals on the demo, but I don’t hear it.
 
Per Brad Sundberg:

Tapes, Masters, Slaves, Demos, Hit Factory

Well... it seems someone is selling a bunch of "mystery" MJ tapes from our time at the Hit Factory in 1994!!
"What's on them??"
"Are they real??"
"Did Michael sing on them??"
'Aaaaaahhhhhh!!"
That's a sampling of some of the messages I've been receiving over the past few days as MJ fans and music collectors have been stumbling on this auction.
I am not in a position to answer any questions about the auction - I don't know who is selling them or why - but I can say they do look real and are very likely very early demos, song ideas and grooves.
>>>>Again - I have absolutely no connection or insight as to where these tapes came from.<<<<
We worked on countless grooves and ideas with Michael over the years, and some eventually became songs. Like big songs. Others faded away into the vault or closet or garage - which looks like the fate of some of the ones being auctioned.
I won't elaborate on song titles from this cluster, but I think I will discuss some basic terms we used in the studio. For obvious reasons some of these terms are now considered a bit dated and even politically incorrect, but they were extremely common used constantly in production settings - and to the best of my knowledge they are still are to a certain extent.
Of course I am referring to Master and Slave.
What did/do those words mean in a studio? Well... it's more complicate than you might first think.
When we started a new song with Michael, we often put up a blank tape (Master) with something called SMPTE on track 24. SMPTE is a time code that allows the tape to "sync" with another tape. So say the track layout of a song looks like this (very simplified for the discussion):
1 - Bass
2 - Kick
3 - Snare
4 - Hat
5 - Tom 1
6 - Tom 2
7 - Tom 3
8 - Tom 4
9 - OH Left
10 - OH Right
11 - Room Left
12 - Room Right
13 - Lead Guitar Left
14 - Lead Guitar Right
15 - Keys Left
16 - Keys Right
17 - Perc Left
18 - Perc Right
19 - Horns Left
20 - Horns Right
21 - Rhythm Guitar Left
22 - Rhythm Guitar Right
23 - Blank
24 - SMPTE
Now Michael wants to sing a scratch vocal but there are no more tracks. (You never use the track next to SMPTE).
So... we would create a Slave tape to play on a 2nd machine - using SMPTE to sync the two machines together. (In reality we would often submix the drums and percussion to two tracks of the Slave tape, transfer the bass, keys and horns, and submix the guitars to two tracks.
1-15 = Open (ready to record)
16 - Bass
17/18 - Guitars
19/20 - Horns
21/22 - Drums + Perc
23 - Blank
24 - SMTPE
This would give us 15 blank tracks for Michael to sing until it was time for dinner.
This might be called Slave 1: Vocals
Then we might create Slave 2: Background Vocals.
Then Slave 3: Choir.
Then Slave 4: Orchesta.
Then these would be transferred to Digital, creating Mix Masters Tape 1 and Tape 2.
But wait... there's more!
Let's suppose a really talented production team in another city wanted to work on one of Michael's songs. We would then create new work tapes (slaves) from Mix Masters 1 and 2, and sent them out. (This was obviously before ProTools, file sharing, etc.).
They this work tape (we'll call it Slave 14) would be sent back to us and if anything was usable those tracks would be added to the digital Master tapes.
This went on and on over the course of countless songs and grooves. Each song might have several masters (different versions, tempos, edits, etc.), which were created from dozens and dozens of slaves. Seriously. I remember some songs spanning over 40-50 multitrack tapes using this methodology.
Each album was very well organized with a very detailed numbering system for each master, slave and work tape. It really was a very impressive library (vault) of tapes, and over the course of an album like HIStory we would often request tapes be shipped out to the Hit Factory in NY from LA to we could listen to specific sounds or instruments from previous sessions years earlier. Bruce and Michael had remarkable memories (as to most studio folks) remembering the tiniest nuances of a certain guitar or keyboard sound, and used those old tapes to help re-create a sound for a new song.
Now - this style of working was very costly. Most artists could never imagine having endless amounts of multitrack tapes to work with! But now they have endless virtual tracks via ProTools.
Confused yet?
Bruce Swedien's style of recording and cataloging these songs and tapes was really second to none.
As to where these tapes came from or what is on them? I don't know. There are a couple familiar song titles, and it would be a lot of fun to hear some of them again, but I thought it might be fun to give you a quick education into why we used so many tapes and so many tracks to create Michael music.
Happy bidding!!
 
AlwaysThere said:
^^ Interesting! So at the very least this is confirmation that (some of) the titles are authentic and were on MJ’s radar at some point. Here’s hoping there’s at least a scratch vocal or two among them!
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Maybe the ones worth looking at are the tapes that say "Vocal Slave" on them, now the question is whether the vocals are Michael's or not
 
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