Listening to a bunch of Queen multis tonight in awe as usual and there seems to be a dimension he added that do not appear on their later work or other bands stuff and that is the 'room' track. Not particularly inciteful to listen to in isolation but adds so much meat to the finished product... its like a having a load of photos of the people who attended your wedding reception but the one you love most is the one from the end of the room that shows everyone at once......
Very nice post! I guess that by the 80's, that sound just wasn't modern anymore. You wanted that bass heavy, crisp, tightly compressed sound with a sort of synthetic, digital atmosphere to it. I personally can't stand it.
The drum tracks to Now I'm Here is always a treat to listen to - there's so much of the other guys bleeding into the room and overhead mics, that there's hardly any need to rerecord the other instruments. You can almost sense what their recording studio looked like just from the sound of that track.
RTB was and is a Standout talent, I fell in love with Queen partly due to his influence, that 'room' sound is the real thing, not a digital artificial creation, you can't beat it. the drum tracks on their early work a so far above those recorded by Mack or anyone else afterwards, they capture what it's really like to sit behind a big kit in an open room, when I saw the space Roger recorded in for The Game and the 80's albums I knew they would never stand a chance of capturing the 'spirit'.
But RTB's skills of mixing, pushing the levels and capturing the true perfomance was a huge part of the way those records sound, he was truly the fifth member just like Martin was for the Beatles, I wish he'd done more with them,
And when a conscious decision to move away from what RTB does best ie. Jazz... it just doesn't work. I remember him a talking about the making of Bo Rhap and how many ways he recorded just the bass guitar... no other producer would have been bothered....
Togg wrote:
he was truly the fifth member just like Martin was for the Beatles, I wish he'd done more with them,
Whilst I totally agree that RTB was perfect for Queen (and vice versa), Brian has said on numerous occasions that on the later albums that he was credited on (from A Day At The Races onwards), RTB was often not there for a bulk of the work, and was almost working as an executive producer, and Mike Stone was pivotal in capturing their sound and, in Brian's words, becoming a fifth member of the band.
Stone's engineering work is often overlooked, but his mic placement, instrument set up, and understanding of how to record certain things etc.. was essential to the finished product.
^^^^ agreed. I also think that A Day At The Races and News Of The World broadly speaking are better sounding albums than A Night At The Oprea and certainly better produced than Jazz. For "Races" and "News" production was firmly in the hands of the band and Mike Stone
Can't agree with News of the World, doesn't sound great to me at all but thats just my opinion. Races has the best drum sound of all the albums, they never quite 'boomed' like they do on that album.
cmsdrums wrote:
Brian has said on numerous occasions that on the later albums that he was credited on (from A Day At The Races onwards)
Except that Roy was not credited on A Day at the Races or News of the World. He wasn't working with Queen on those projects.
I agree with the point of Mike Stone being arguably more of a fifth member than Roy. Races and News have Mike but not Roy, and they're far more classic Queen than Jazz, which has Roy but not Mike.
Togg wrote:
he was truly the fifth member just like Martin was for the Beatles, I wish he'd done more with them,
Whilst I totally agree that RTB was perfect for Queen (and vice versa), Brian has said on numerous occasions that on the later albums that he was credited on (from A Day At The Races onwards), RTB was often not there for a bulk of the work, and was almost working as an executive producer, and Mike Stone was pivotal in capturing their sound and, in Brian's words, becoming a fifth member of the band.
Stone's engineering work is often overlooked, but his mic placement, instrument set up, and understanding of how to record certain things etc.. was essential to the finished product.
Very true, Mikes work was amazing, I guess I kind of think of him a RTB's apprentice, I personnally feel without RTB's input at the start that set the tone for the bands work over the next couple of years Mike would have not neccessarily gone in the same direction. Obviously there was a huge connection between Mike and Brian + probably the rest of the band, but to me RTB has always been the pivitol point in there definitive sound.
Btw I also love Jazz, itls very different yes, but I'd much rather have that drum sound then the later ones on The Game...