Supersonic_Man89 02.05.2015 05:27 |
Fairy Fellers Master Stroke at Live at the Rainbow sounds like the shittest thing Queen have ever officially released. Totally disrespectful to Freddie's legacy how they have manipulated Freddie's voice so he sounds like the fucking blue guy from Eiffel 65. I don't neccessarily mind if they edit his voice to make it sound better without it sounding obviously fake, but this seems like such an amateurish job...something you'd expect some teenager on youtube to make. If you can't edit it, then having listened to the rest of the gig, i can't imagine Freddie's voice to be that bad on one song? Just leave it. However, by giving it a Cher/Kanye West/Britney computerised voice, it just sticks out and i can't listen to it. I know people will point out MK, Wembley, Live Killers have all been manipulated but i don't think they've released anything that shoddy before. |
Biggus Dickus 02.05.2015 06:15 |
Yes, it is quite dodgy. I'd love to know what's actually going on with that track. |
Oscar J 02.05.2015 09:13 |
I kept saying this all the time when it was released. The falsetto in the beginning is hilariously badly edited. The rest of the track isn't too bad though - the ploughboy C5 has probably been edited one way or another, and there are a few slightly twangy sounding notes, but most of it seems genuine. They even kept an off sounding guitar chord after the A capella bit, so I'm not sure why they had to start fiddling with the vocals. |
tomchristie22 02.05.2015 09:43 |
Oscar J wrote: They even kept an off sounding guitar chord after the A capella bit, so I'm not sure why they had to start fiddling with the vocals.Cos they'd been systematically fiddling with the vocals for most every other song thus far - why stop there? :P By the way, the chord sounds bad because Brian played an A minor where he was supposed to play a D minor, making the progression into Am, Am rather than Dm, Am. |
tomchristie22 02.05.2015 09:45 |
Outrage wouldn't achieve anything. It'd take a hell of a lot of outraged people to get QP to take ownership of the fact that they're hiring people to digitally alter Freddie's voice. I'm convinced no amount of outraged people would get them to release the track in an unedited form, which is a tragic shame. We can really only guess as to whether the harmonies were that immaculate on the night, what that falsetto line and the C5 really sounded like. Based on the extensive comparing I've done from what unaltered stuff I could compare from previous releases to the 2014 one, the fact that these parts of Fairy Feller were edited doesn't necessarily indicate that they were performed that badly on the night - the 2014 release has autotune correcting the very slightest and most momentary off-key notes in some cases. Still, the amount of distortion on 'plough' certainly seems to indicate that the note Freddie hit was a decent way off the one he intended, and the one that was instated on the recent release. Perhaps it's worth mentioning that the applause after the song isn't that big or enthusiastic - could that indicate that the performance had enough mistakes (including that guitar chord) to not go over so well as a whole? Who knows, really... |
discosucks 02.05.2015 16:15 |
I agree, I was completely confused when I first heard it, and even more so when almost no-one seemed to notice it on QZ. What's even going on there? Why must they do this? |
artist_nine 03.05.2015 03:33 |
I remember there being discussion about this "issue" right after the release. I also was surprised that they'd release such a badly edited version of Fairy Feller's but I guess I didn't bother to contribute much to the discussion then because I was so glad (still am) that the Rainbow gigs were released at all (after 40 years). No, that bit ("ploughboy") doesn't sound very good, but I think what we now have is better than Queen leaving these in the vaults forever... However, I would love to hear comments from Brian and/or Roger (or Justin/Josh/Kris) about this "issue". |
brENsKi 03.05.2015 04:49 |
tomchristie22 wrote:. We can really only guess as to whether the harmonies were that immaculate on the night, what that falsetto line and the C5 really sounded like.well not really. there's no need to guess anything. fact is - they altered it - and if they were happier with this "tweaked" result than the original - means the original wasn't acceptable...by some distance tomchristie22 wrote:Based on the extensive comparing I've done from what unaltered stuff I could compare from previous releases to the 2014 one, the fact that these parts of Fairy Feller were edited doesn't necessarily indicate that they were performed that badly on the night -yeah it does. you don't hack n slash something to make it worse. also the only real evidence we need is there for all to see:- how many times did they perform this song live? exactly. they couldn't get it right live. so they didn't bother. |
Mrmarioanonym 03.05.2015 05:18 |
it also sounds like they flew in parts of the studio version or even edited in an alternate studio take in places. It just doesn't sound live. You can make mistakes in the studio too and that guitar note could've been easily fixed. Maybe they left it in to make it sound more live? |
tomchristie22 03.05.2015 07:32 |
brENsKi wrote:I didn't say we need to guess IF those obviously doctored notes are doctored - I said we can only guess what they sounded like before being doctored. As for the harmonies, they're probably doctored, but I don't hear any digital artefacting on them to solidly prove that they are. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this if someone can offer evidence.tomchristie22 wrote:. We can really only guess as to whether the harmonies were that immaculate on the night, what that falsetto line and the C5 really sounded like.well not really. there's no need to guess anything. fact is - they altered it - and if they were happier with this "tweaked" result than the original - means the original wasn't acceptable...by some distancetomchristie22 wrote:Based on the extensive comparing I've done from what unaltered stuff I could compare from previous releases to the 2014 one, the fact that these parts of Fairy Feller were edited doesn't necessarily indicate that they were performed that badly on the night -yeah it does. you don't hack n slash something to make it worse. also the only real evidence we need is there for all to see:- how many times did they perform this song live? exactly. they couldn't get it right live. so they didn't bother. You chopped out the part of my post where I explained that they DID hack and slash parts completely needlessly throughout the entire Rainbow release, even to vocal parts that were only minutely off, such that they weren't offensive in the slightest, yet still obviously needed digital fixing by QPL's reckoning. See my Rainbow releases analysis (link if you need further proof that their philosophy really was this nitpicky when it came to Freddie's vocal. So, I maintain my original point, which is this: the fact that they're autotuned doesn't give us any indication of how bad they were before, as the release contains pitch correction on everything from the tiniest to the greatest of bum notes. |
Mrmarioanonym 03.05.2015 07:47 |
the worst digital distortion is NOT on "ploughboy" but on "come to hear the sound". Blecch. How this slipped past QC is beyond me. |
people on streets 03.05.2015 07:58 |
All we need is a good audience recording to know how it really sounded. |
tomchristie22 03.05.2015 08:00 |
Mrmarioanonym wrote: You can make mistakes in the studio too and that guitar note could've been easily fixed. Maybe they left it in to make it sound more live?I think it's quite possible - they did the same sort of thing in March of the Black Queen (November concert) by using the vocal from a night where Freddie's voice cracks on 'QUEEN of the night', when there was the alternate night that they could have drawn on (which we know is smooth on that line based on the VHS version of the concert which uses it, unless that's an overdub. Either way, we can probably assume that his voice didn't crack the same way both nights). So, what we're left with is an overall very autotuned 'I rule with my left hand, I rule with my right, I'm lord of all darkness'... and then the crack on 'Queen of the night' to create some sort of impression of rawness and authenticity, contrary to the manipulative perfectionism on the entire line prior. Still, perhaps there was no such intentioned reason for the inclusion of the bad chord on Fairy Feller- perhaps they just couldn't fix it. They had no alternate night to draw on, and the correct chord isn't played with the same tone, resonance, or slowness anywhere else in the recording, so patching it in would've been pretty difficult to do well. They could've pitch shifted Brian's mistaken Am up to a Dm, but such a jump in pitch would've sounded quite hideous (even more so than the most egregious vocal edits on the release). It's possible that studio overdubs were done in 1974 or 75, but there's no proof of this, nor proof that they were even planning on Fairy Feller being included on the eventually scrapped live release of the March concert. I tend to believe that they only recorded overdubs for those tracks which we hear on the bootleg of the March show, which is indicative of what the Sheffield bros. wished to release. Still, this is only guessing based on the fact that it would've been completely impractical to record overdubs for all the tracks, then cull it down to only eight of them. |
tomchristie22 03.05.2015 08:03 |
people on streets wrote: All we need is a good audience recording to know how it really sounded.I'd take a bad one. Anything for certainty on matters like this. One can hope that something will come to light one day... Do we know who exactly did the editing work on the 2014 Rainbow release? I may try and get in touch with them, see if they can provide some insight into how Fairy Feller sounded before Pro Tools work... It's probably expecting too much to hope that they'd even reply, let alone acknowledge the edits, but it's worth a try. EDIT: No luck finding contact details for Justin Shirley Smith, Kris Fredriksson, or Josh Macrae, who reportedly engineered the release. Quite a shame. |
MercurialFreddie 03.05.2015 09:42 |
Tom, you can contact Gary Taylor, who is on FB and he could pass your message or even write it to him as he has a share in responsibility for the Rainbow release. |
MercurialFreddie 03.05.2015 09:42 |
Also I thought that Justin Shirley Smith has an account here on Queenzone.... |
BETA215 03.05.2015 12:39 |
MercurialFreddie wrote: Also I thought that Justin Shirley Smith has an account here on Queenzone....Justin's account is JSS, Gary's account is GT, and the Greg one is GB (in QueenZone). Just PM them and surely they'll receive an email with your PM. |
MercurialFreddie 03.05.2015 13:24 |
Was existence of an audience recording of this show confirmed or denied ? Is there a possibility that there does exist such recording but is in private hands and the owner isn't willing to share it ? |
Nitroboy 03.05.2015 15:29 |
The possibility always exists. But we don't know of any audience recording. |
tomchristie22 03.05.2015 17:52 |
Well.. I think I successfully PMed them - after I pressed send it took me to a blank page with just the 'Members' heading, and the messages do not show up in my sent box. Perhaps it didn't work? |
BETA215 03.05.2015 18:53 |
tomchristie22 wrote: Well.. I think I successfully PMed them - after I pressed send it took me to a blank page with just the 'Members' heading, and the messages do not show up in my sent box. Perhaps it didn't work?That's how QueenZone works, so yeah. Congratulations! I hope they answer your/our questions. |
RafaelS 03.05.2015 19:46 |
Supersonic_Man89 wrote:
Why is there not more outrage?Because there are more important things than that in life. |
The King Of Rhye 03.05.2015 21:21 |
RafaelS wrote: Supersonic_Man89 wrote:OR because it doesn't really sound THAT freakin bad (" Cher/Kanye West/Britney computerised voice")....and like it or not, just about every live album is doctored............Why is there not more outrage?Because there are more important things than that in life. |
Supersonic_Man89 04.05.2015 04:58 |
Maybe not to you, but to me it sounds horrific. And of course, there are more important things in life...but i'm referring to the context of a Queen forum where there was a meltdown when Roger's solo stuff was labelled incorrectly. |
RafaelS 04.05.2015 08:11 |
Supersonic_Man89 wrote: Maybe not to you, but to me it sounds horrific. And of course, there are more important things in life...but i'm referring to the context of a Queen forum where there was a meltdown when Roger's solo stuff was labelled incorrectly.I didn't say you don't have the right to be outraged. Before you talked about it, I didn't even notice it. Now that I know about it, I will listen to it and maybe I will be mad also, lol. |
Supersonic_Man89 04.05.2015 08:37 |
You didn't notice it? Really? Blimey. |
Mrmarioanonym 04.05.2015 11:27 |
the whole release is full of aforementioned artifacts. It's why i decided not to buy it after taking a listen to large parts of both shows. It just sounds too revisionist and fake. My ears are very sensitive, so this is completely ruined for me. A shame. It could've been one of the most exciting QPR releases yet. |
BETA215 04.05.2015 12:01 |
QPR? Queen and Paul Rodgers? Ohh... maybe you are talking about QPL (Queen Productions Limited), right? |
BETA215 04.05.2015 12:06 |
I bought the 2CD version of the concert (I'm a silly pirate, blame me) 'cause of being the only new 'old concert' in years. AutoTune and all that stuff are the overdubs of the 21th century, don't expect them being used only in horrible parts: now every release is gonna be "purrfect" (yeah, purr). |
mooghead 04.05.2015 15:08 |
As I have said before, the Rainbow shows look amazing but I have absolutely no idea what I am listening to. Certainly not what the band was playing or what the audience was hearing on the night... |
thomasquinn 32989 05.05.2015 04:46 |
You people are overstating the matter here. Yes, it's been doctored. But much more subtly than, say, LIVE KILLERS. Come on, what were you expecting? However, statements like "but I have absolutely no idea what I am listening to. Certainly not what the band was playing or what the audience was hearing on the night... " are utter bullshit. We have fragmentary audience recordings for comparison - that says enough. |
Supersonic_Man89 05.05.2015 05:16 |
When i hear Live Killers, i don't hear Freddie evolving into a robot during high notes. Which makes Live Killers a much more pleasant experience to listen to, even if it's not authentically live, at least it's authentically human to a large degree. |
cmsdrums 05.05.2015 05:29 |
Supersonic_Man89 wrote: When i hear Live Killers, i don't hear Freddie evolving into a robot during high notes. Which makes Live Killers a much more pleasant experience to listen to, even if it's not authentically live, at least it's authentically human to a large degree.Live Killers is pretty much authentically live - yes it features performances from different shows, but far less in the way of studio overdubs than most live albums. |
thomasquinn 32989 05.05.2015 06:49 |
cmsdrums wrote:Supersonic_Man89 wrote: When i hear Live Killers, i don't hear Freddie evolving into a robot during high notes. Which makes Live Killers a much more pleasant experience to listen to, even if it's not authentically live, at least it's authentically human to a large degree.Live Killers is pretty much authentically live - yes it features performances from different shows, but far less in the way of studio overdubs than most live albums. Don't Stop Me Now intro? |
thomasquinn 32989 05.05.2015 06:50 |
Supersonic_Man89 wrote: When i hear Live Killers, i don't hear Freddie evolving into a robot during high notes. Which makes Live Killers a much more pleasant experience to listen to, even if it's not authentically live, at least it's authentically human to a large degree. I think you are dramatically overstating the degree of warping of the vocals. The length of time it took before someone even brought it up is a testament to that. |
tomchristie22 05.05.2015 07:13 |
thomasquinn 32989 wrote:That, much of We are the Champions, and Roger's top note in the middle eight of '39. Those are all the major ones that I can recall.cmsdrums wrote:Don't Stop Me Now intro?Supersonic_Man89 wrote: When i hear Live Killers, i don't hear Freddie evolving into a robot during high notes. Which makes Live Killers a much more pleasant experience to listen to, even if it's not authentically live, at least it's authentically human to a large degree.Live Killers is pretty much authentically live - yes it features performances from different shows, but far less in the way of studio overdubs than most live albums. |
tomchristie22 05.05.2015 07:15 |
thomasquinn 32989 wrote:True - I was thinking about this a bit. Once you notice it, it's pretty obvious ... I guess the excitement of how good the first section sounded, especially the vocal harmonies, led people to post very positively without having listened to the entire thing very carefully (well - the entire iTunes preview which we had at the time, which faded in at 'Pedagogue, squinting...' and faded out sometime close to the end). That and the fact that it was a live version of Fairy Feller - lots of hype.Supersonic_Man89 wrote: When i hear Live Killers, i don't hear Freddie evolving into a robot during high notes. Which makes Live Killers a much more pleasant experience to listen to, even if it's not authentically live, at least it's authentically human to a large degree.I think you are dramatically overstating the degree of warping of the vocals. The length of time it took before someone even brought it up is a testament to that. |
Mrmarioanonym 05.05.2015 12:09 |
actually, people commented on it pretty much immediately. |
Rick 05.05.2015 13:25 |
Be happy with what you got. I think it sounds amazing (despite some questionable decisions). We got a live version of a song that was probably played only once and still people are complaining. Unbelievable. The Rainbow release is one of the best, if not THE best, in the last ten years. |
thomasquinn 32989 06.05.2015 07:16 |
Rick wrote: Be happy with what you got. I think it sounds amazing (despite some questionable decisions). We got a live version of a song that was probably played only once and still people are complaining. Unbelievable. The Rainbow release is one of the best, if not THE best, in the last ten years. I have no hesitations at all in calling it THE best release since 1995. |
tomchristie22 06.05.2015 07:49 |
Rick wrote: We got a live version of a song that was probably played only once and still people are complaining. Unbelievable.I think it's fair to complain when the climactic moments of said live song are so conspicuously tainted. In fact, it's absolutely fair to complain when the release could have been miles better than it ended up being,* had they simply not done this one thing to it. All they had to do was leave the pitch alone. Basically, it's not as if the complaining you refer to is some sort of general unsatisfiable whining; the criticism is directed at a single and very precise aspect of the release - the post-production treatment of the vocals. So yes, we got a live version of a song which was only played once, but we got it in a rather poorer state than it should have, and could so easily have been in. What's more, because this is now considered the definitive release of it, it's quite possible we'll never hear it in its most authentic form. * Even if Freddie completely botched the notes which have had the most extensive pitch correction applied, I'd still much rather listen to that. |
Biggus Dickus 06.05.2015 08:19 |
tomchristie22 wrote:Rick wrote: We got a live version of a song that was probably played only once and still people are complaining. Unbelievable.I think it's fair to complain when the climactic moments of said live song are so conspicuously tainted. In fact, it's absolutely fair to complain when the release could have been miles better than it ended up being,* had they simply not done this one thing to it. All they had to do was leave the pitch alone. Basically, it's not as if the complaining you refer to is some sort of general unsatisfiable whining; the criticism is directed at a single and very precise aspect of the release - the post-production treatment of the vocals. So yes, we got a live version of a song which was only played once, but we got it in a rather poorer state than it should have, and could so easily have been in. What's more, because this is now considered the definitive release of it, it's quite possible we'll never hear it in its most authentic form. * Even if Freddie completely botched the notes which have had the most extensive pitch correction applied, I'd still much rather listen to that. ^^ I agree with this. It annoys me how it seems the QPL are on the crusade to leave an immaculate image of Freddie as a live singer for posterity. Anyone who knows their stuff know this isn't the truth. One other example. We all know the Rock In Rio 1985 VHS didn't have the best sound mix, but for my ears It's a Hard Life from the 2nd CD of The Works 2011 remaster sounds even worse now. The drums sound really compressed and unnatural (like they did with the Rainbow '74 release) and it annoys me they've corrected Freddie forgetting the words and replaced that little rough sounding Bb4 note at the end with this totally unnaturally clean note. I like to hear things as they happened, not as the QPL would have preferred it happening in the first place. |
brENsKi 06.05.2015 12:56 |
'cept that they're not, are they? all they're doing is exactly what every band in the music industry has done to their live recordings - since live albums were "the big thing" - ie the 1970s. pick a live album and search for "overdubs" and you'll see that very very few classic live albums were untouched. In fact, some classics - Thin Lizzy's "Live and Dangerous" was redone untouched four years ago to show what it should've sounded like. The original release was said to have only one genuinely live aspect of the recording untouched - and that was the crowd noise |
Supersonic_Man89 06.05.2015 19:19 |
I think we all appreciate that the band want to release the best representation of the group live as possible, that's something we all understand. However, there's better and more subtle ways to do this. The It's a Hard Life dub for example...thankfully, it doesn't sound digitally autotuned but it still seems out of place...i couldn't even tell you if it was Freddie? If they weren't happy with the end of Rio note, what about swapping it with a slightly better note from a another performance of It's A Hard Life...at least it would Freddie live dubbed with Freddie live...rather than whatever we got. They may not have been able to do that with FFMS, however i really think there are better solutions available than to what we got. |
Saint Jiub 06.05.2015 20:12 |
Supersonic_Man89 wrote: They may not have been able to do that with FFMS, however i really think there are better solutions available than to what we got.... and their were probably worse solutions ... Based on QPL past history, I am surprised that Rainbow was released at all. Fortunately, "we" got a tolerable compromise rather than nothing at all. |
tomchristie22 07.05.2015 01:12 |
brENsKi wrote: all they're doing is exactly what every band in the music industry has done to their live recordings - since live albums were "the big thing" - ie the 1970s.True, but live recordings these days are vastly more numerous in the form of recordings which find their way online (see how many pro shot videos there are of Mumford and Sons on YouTube, for instance - an enormous amount. The available video coverage of their two tours is probably at least twice as extensive as Queen's entire touring career). Since these have very little post-production work done to them except shot assembly, and aren't given ceremonious official releases, they're generally an untouched representation of what the live show sounded like. So, in an age where this is the predominant format in which live shows become available, and live albums are comparatively very scarce, it's easy to account for the expectation that live releases are done in an authentic way. There's also a key difference between overdubbing and its modern day equivalent - pitch shifting - in that overdubbing isn't sonically hideous. |
brENsKi 07.05.2015 07:34 |
^^ ideally, yes. But in reality no. it just isn't the case - whether an album "live" or studio - it'll be released in the best possible condition as far as the band are concerned. therefore, it's too easy to get hung up on morality/authenticity...but the reality is that the vast majority of album sales are to the casual fan - who just likes to hear the stuff when it's released, and an album that is riddled with imperfections equates to a poor product. If you lose the casual fan then effectively you lose the goodwill of your record company, which means less scope for divergence, which equals no projects like "rainbow" and more and more rehashed Greatest Hits . Not much of a moral choice is it? what would YOU do in their position? |
HighWideandHandsome 07.05.2015 09:47 |
Supersonic_Man89 wrote: When i hear Live Killers, i don't hear Freddie evolving into a robot during high notes.Wouldn't that be devolving for Freddie? |
brENsKi 07.05.2015 10:19 |
HighWideandHandsome wrote:and more importantly....how many source options did they have for the Rainbow release?Supersonic_Man89 wrote: When i hear Live Killers, i don't hear Freddie evolving into a robot during high notes.Wouldn't that be devolving for Freddie? because you're making an unfair comparison to LK...everyone knows that LK was sourced from 50 shows - so there was plenty to choose from to find a "best" option |