Why does Brian May's guitar sound thin at wembley and at houston but on almost all the other soundboard recordings the guitar sounds just fine? just curious
Its probably more to do with the way the sound is mixed at the desk. I would think. Having seen Brian 4 times now, I can say that his sound on stage is anything but thin. There is times when he does switch a thin sound when soloing to get that "scream" effect (Bo Rhap's first solo and TYMD come to mind) but as soon as the solo is over, he switches back to a fuller sound.
That said though, some outdoor gigs can be fraught will all sorts of technical difficulties which can affect the sound, wind being one of them.
It's a matter of the guitar-track(s) having been poorly equalized, resulting in the 'body' of the sound getting buried in the mix (a process similar to sound masking, but accidental rather than deliberate) because of too great an overlap in the frequency spectrums of different instruments.
Mr Mercury wrote:
That said though, some outdoor gigs can be fraught will all sorts of technical difficulties which can affect the sound, wind being one of them.
I agree - my guitarist has wind frequently, which can really ruin the gig for I tell ya!
Just read the article (Guitarist '85) where Brian tells about repairing his guitar. Particularly pickups. I guess it doesn't explain everything, but maybe takes place as well as environment and studio techniques
Wembley sounded like brand new strings, treble booster too high and not enough overdrive. For classic BM tone compare wembley to the bowl. As far as the body of his sound being buried in the mix - i just don't buy it. When you hear him riffing alone (beginning of Tear it up)it's still sounds squeeky and thin and if it's was a mix problem you would think that at least it would have been sorted out at the ''engineering for dvd'' stage.
Well, I haven't seen anyone with the answer that I've seen on the BHM forum, so, I might as well post it.
It's nothing to do with mixing boards or bad equalising. It had been thought of, but dismissed when someone recreated the sound with the same equipment...
Basically, some peeps over at BHM all seemed to have an idea about the booster section he used specifically at that gig. Brian was using a "TB-83" and a "TB-83 extra" together to do something (I'm not sure what) to the sound. And I also remember something about a long guitar lead as part of this setup also helping to produce the resulting sound heard on Wembley.