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#Freddie Mercury
resqectable · 1 day
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You can be anything you want to be, just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be.
Freddie Mercury
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Radio Ga Ga (1984)
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fuckyeahmercury · 3 days
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brianmayism · 3 days
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Me: I need to study RIGHT NOW
Also me: *ends up making a life-size 6'2 cardboard Brian May after 14 hours*
As a 154cm girly in an Asian country... he's scary tall. And I'm in love
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debdarkpetal · 18 hours
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The band on the set of the promotional video for 'Bohemian Rhapsody' at Elstree Studios, Hertfordshire, England, in November 1975. Photo by Watal Asanuma.
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dupsivoopsi · 16 hours
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sketches and doodle
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my-bass-lies · 2 days
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goodomens-girlie · 6 hours
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Crowley in the 70s vs Freddie Mercury in the 70s
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riaaanna · 23 hours
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Montreux Part 6: The Mixing Desk with Justin Shirley-Smith - 2 Sept 2023
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One more post for the afternoon session at the QSE in Montreux! It is well-known that the studio has a mixing desk feature where you can mix your own version of two songs: Made in Heaven and Mother Love. However, for the birthday celebration, Justin Shirley-Smith (!!!) was going to be there with many other tracks to select and mix, particularly some special ones from the debut Queen album.
I have to reveal my nerdy self - this was the event that convinced me to go to Montreux that day, dissertation deadline being a couple of days away and all. I could have gone any other day if it were just for the statue and visiting QSE, but this was unmissable. So here's a look at the studio first and then the event! Long fangirling post warning.
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The top left photo (📸 Richard Gray) is what it looks like when it's empty, which obviously I couldn't get on that day but it's a clear view of where everything is. My photo on the top right was the view of the console in the studio that day. The newly inaugurated bust of David Richards was placed next to the mixing desk, but now it's been moved to the casino gardens. Written description on the plate:
David Richards 20 February 1956 - 20 December 2013 Musician, Sound Engineer, and Producer in charge of Mountain Studios While his name is most often associated with the British rock band Queen or even David Bowie, his numerous artistic collaborations have made him a major figure in the history of music. in addition to his work at Mountain Studios, which he bought in 1993, David recorded the Montreux Jazz Festival over a period of 38 years, contributing to the musical archives granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 2013.
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There's a circular plate on the studio floor which marks where Freddie stood to record his last vocals for Mother Love. Honestly, no words needed to describe how profound and emotional it was for me to be there on the very same spot.
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There were several display cabinets in the studio. Firstly a miniature replica of Freddie's statue, designed by Irena Sedlecká. Also on display on the other side of the room are the lyrics of A Winter's Tale and Mother's love which I posted previously here. Finally, there was also this analogue 24-track recorder:
Original Struder A80 Analogue 24 Track This Swiss made Struder A80 analogue 24-track recorder is one of the two that were used in this studio from the beginning in 1975. This machine, and the rack equipment either side, have been kindly loaned to Queen: The Studio Experience by David Richards.
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And now to this baby!! Now this whole thing isn't an actual working mixing desk, save some actual faders that are designed to do so (only 10 of them) but it's certainly based on the original. Here's Justin Shirley-Smith's note regarding the console:
The console at Mountain Studios was a 1975 vintage Neve 8048. The Studio Experience exhibition features a specially created faithful and full-scale representation of that desk. The main surface of this is a 2D printed image formed from over 300 separate photographs of the original Neve modules. The frame and trim were constructed with reference to the original 1974 Neve drawings. This replica console was the work of the brilliant Nigel Knight and his talented team at RMA Ltd in UK. The original Neve console is now owned by Svenska Grammofonstudion of Gothenburg in Sweden, who kindly allowed it to be photographed by Andrew Guyton for this use. The original desk was updated in the late 1980’s with Neve ‘Necam’ moving faders but the image in the exhibition shows the original 1975 manual faders … and in the spot where originally there were sixteen red group faders, we have put some real red faders so anyone can mix a Queen song there once more.
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You can see above the ten red faders which are functional and set up to mix Queen songs the way you want them. It's amazing because you get to hear certain backing vocals or instruments on their own if you set them all the way up and the rest of the faders down, and I have an obsession with getting to hear those kinds of things.
You can also see four red buttons on the right. Two of them are to select songs you can mix, which are Mother Love and Made in Heaven. The other two aren't for mixing but they do play Bicycle Race and The Invisible Man in surround sound in the studio. So these are the default options available on any day.
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I took pictures of the rest of the "faders", which are actually just stickers but represented the original setup when it was used back then. You can see that there are Roger's drums (BD = bass drums, SN = snares, HH = hi hats, etc, OH = overhead? AMB = ambience? I'm just smart guessing!) John's bass, Brian's AC 30 amps, everyone's mics etc. All of which add up to 24-tracks. I wish I were an actual sound engineer to deeply know more about mixing details, but for me this was already mindblowing as it is!
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Now this is where it gets fun! For the celebration, Justin brought out these songs available to mix. Basically he connected his laptop to the system so he can connect these multitracks. We just come up to him and request which one we want to try!
These handwritten boards are just labels that we put on top of the faders when we select the song, as a guide to label which fader corresponds to which track. They're removable and he would just put them on according to whichever song we chose. You can see that each song has different split tracks, some of them have more guitar and vocal tracks, some of them have more piano or keys, etc.
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Here's a tiny clip of me trying on A Winter's Tale. I'm not left-handed but I had to hold the camera, and idk if you can see it but I was shaking lmao. This song always sends chills down my spine and to be able to hear just the backing harmonies or just the guitars? It was incredible oh my God. I was so grateful I could go to Montreux.
This was just a snippet of what I tried, because the room was open for 4 hours and I ended up being in there for 2 hours, which nobody else did lol. It wasn't empty, it was quite crowded but most people come in and out just to try 1-2 songs. To clarify I did not hog the board to myself for two hours lmfao (wish I could!) but I was in the room to watch other people give it a try and when there's no one else then I come up and try. I got about 4-5 tries I think!
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So you can see it was a small room, and I swear I tried to not look like a weirdo standing there for 2 hours watching people do their stuff, and I really was gonna try to come up to Justin and chat with him at some point. Turns out he beat me to it, he came up and said hi(!!! 😭 but that's probably because I was just stood there in the corner for ages like 🧍‍♂️ sdkjfdfk). I told him could only be there that year and made sure to express that, despite not being sound engineering expert, his event was why I came to Montreux on the celebration day, and I think he was glad to hear it!
Anyway he was sooo kind and insightful. I asked him which songs he would recommend me to try, and which parts I should turn up to hear what you wouldn't normally hear very clearly in the album.
He suggested My Fairy King, which are there in raw tracks (without effects!) and because it's from the debut album. He suggested to turn up Freddie's piano in the last verse (the super quick instrumental part) and it was incredible to hear. I also got to hear which parts of that song had acoustic guitars (you wouldn't hear it as is on the song!), isolated parts of the drums and bass, and isolated vocals (you are NOT ready for Roger's isolated backing vocals oh my GOD).
Some other highlights for me are isolated everythings of Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, and A Winter's Tale. I tried to spend time on tracks that we never had stems or multitracks of, either somewhere on the internet or from the official 5.1 surround mixes (which A Night At The Opera and The Game was once released in). And that's just those four songs I mentioned. Of course I wish I could stay the whole time to try every song and put on every isolated track, but I had to keep it together lol. Might you hear bits of these somewhere later on...? You know what they say about winning lotteries, I wouldn't say a thing but there might be signs...!
I stayed for as long as I could before my Ask Phoebe session, I requested several songs enough times that Justin jokingly said "didn't you try that one already" 💀 I didn't even have it in me to be embarrassed lol it's once in a lifetime my man let me live! But yes I eventually finished, got a selfie with him, and finally felt okay enough to go.
Have a bonus mirror selfie of myself on my way out. I'm sure I don't have readers left by this paragraph but if you're here, thank you for reading my Montreux series! Just one or two more before I wrap it up, and it will be on the Official Freddie Birthday Party!
Late edit: I want to put a big thanks to Lurex B. and Dry Paint Dealer Undr. That day I couldn't properly remember which songs we already had, whether in stems or full multis, so when I panicked in the chat they were the ones standing by online and helping me prioritize. They probably don't remember it being a big deal but that virtually held my hand throughout lol, so thank you guys. ❤️
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killerqueen509 · 2 days
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apfel-strudelz · 8 months
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after season 2
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1000-celebrities · 29 days
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The Greatest Singers
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100+ Greatest Singers of All Time Posters & Canvas Prints
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Freddie with Billy Connolly and Kenny Everett.
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hayz08 · 1 year
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Freddie Mercury posing on his car
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freddie-mercuryy · 7 months
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Happy 77th Birthday, Freddie Mercury!
5th September 1946
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melspontaneus · 2 months
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Crowley as Freddie Mercury (1984) thanks to this tweet
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