| scallyuk 04.05.2017 04:15 |
OK maybe not "The " Piano" but FREDDIE MERCURY’S FAZIOLI Mercury is a grand piano sample library for Kontakt Player featuring a Fazioli F228 recorded at Metropolis Studios in London. One year in the making, crafting it piece by piece in order to make it perfect in every possible way. Fazioli pianos pursuit perfection. They’re sophistically delicate but with a very rich low-end and a lot of body resonance. Mercury was recorded by Grammy Award winning Paul B. Norris with 5 mic positions from ultra-close to room sound for maximum versatility. It sounds warm and very emotional. Perfect for intimate low-key tracks, but it’s also very punchy and aggressive on high velocities. A combination that you don’t find usually on piano libraries. It has been captured with so much detail and depth that you can make it sound in a million different ways and still sound natural, but it will always retain the character. Mercury can be a big monster library or light-weighted since one microphone only uses ~300MB of RAM. With realism in mind and all the possible features that we could think of including soft pedalling, una corda, sostenuto, sympathetic resonance, microtuning… Mercury will fit in every situation perfectly, and it will be an honour to know that it has become your go-to piano library. A beautiful and powerful interface rendered in 3D designed to inspire you. From the mixer you can control the different mics separately with the usual parameters that you’d normally get on an audio mixer, and with extra features like a new way of mixing that we call “position enhanced”. In the effects page you can add 4 DSP effects to the sound, specially designed for piano. Metropolis Plates which are two EMT140s from Metropolis Studios, compressor, tilt EQ and chorus. From the settings panel you can control basically any parameter that you might ever need. From the round robin number up to the sympathetic resonance and pedal noises. |
| Togg 04.05.2017 06:50 |
So.... is this a piano that Freddie played???? or a similar one? or just recorded in the same studio he once went in? What happened to the piano he recorded Bo Rhap on? I heard it was the same piano that The Beatles used for Hey Jude.... really? surely a different studio owned that piano, and we know Mercury's stage piano is owned by Brian and lives at his house |
| Sebastian 04.05.2017 06:57 |
According to the owners of Metropolis Studios in Chiswick, their Fazioli was a present from Fred. The 'Bo Rhap' one was not the same as the 'Hey Jude' one. Same make and rented from the same shop, but different model, size and colour. The 'Hey Jude' piano was played on the first two albums as well as 'Now I'm Here', 'God Save the Queen' (muted for the mix) and the Smile version of 'Step On Me'. There were at least two other Bechstein pianos they used in the seventies besides that one: a brown 'III' model ('Killer Queen', 'Lap of the Gods', 'Leroy Brown', 'Dear Friends', 'Lily of the Valley', 'Teo Torriatte' and 'You and I') and a white 'IV' model (most - not all - of 'Opera', and Fred's songs off 'Races'). The brown one can be seen in the video for 'Somebody to Love', the white one for 'Bo Rhap', 'Best Friend' and the legendary Hyde Park and Hammersmith Odeon gigs. The 'Hey Jude' one was black (or is 'African-Prussian' the PC term?) Brian now has the touring Steinway. The baby-grand Yamaha is, presumably, at Garden Lodge. Another Steinway (the one they had at Mountain, presumably 25% Freddie's) allegedly went to Roger's mill in the early nineties - it might be at the Priory nowadays. Fred was a multi-millionaire so he probably owned more than two pianos... there's one he had in NYC which he used to write 'I Was Born to Love You,' also an upright one he had before buying the Yamaha, and who knows what else. |
| Vocal harmony 04.05.2017 10:03 |
Sebastian wrote: . . . . .Brian now has the touring Steinway. The baby-grand Yamaha is, presumably, at Garden Lodge. Another Steinway (the one they had at Mountain, presumably 25% Freddie's) allegedly went to Roger's mill in the early nineties - it might be at the Priory nowadays.Not wishing to cast doubt on Brian's historical Queen references but. The Stieinway the band toured with was the "less expensive" version of the D9, being finished in satin black rather than hi gloss. It also had two 9ft wooden batons (rails) screwed to the long side of the casing to make it easier to place into and remove from its flight case. In the few pics I've seen of it in Brian's studio it's now a deep black gloss with the rails removed. Know Brian has said it was restored after it was retired from touring but if this is the same piano it looks like it had a total rebuilt and refinish As for the piano sample, maybe they should hook Spike up with this for the forth coming tour! |
| Sebastian 04.05.2017 11:38 |
Really interesting points. |
| Sebastian 04.05.2017 11:40 |
From OIQFC magazine, Spring 1994. |
| Togg 05.05.2017 05:06 |
Very interesting, great info |
| scallyuk 05.05.2017 08:10 |
link for more info |
| dysan 07.05.2017 02:00 |
Good thread. |
| Sebastian 21.05.2017 11:13 |
When he moved to England, he allegedly played a Kirkwood. |
| miraclesteinway 08.02.2018 23:33 |
The satin finish on the touring Steinway wasn't because it was a cheaper version, but because it was the American version. The American Steinway didn't have a high gloss finish in the 1970s, and in fact only started producing a high gloss finish about 10 years ago. The two batons screwed into the side are called skid rails, they can be made of galvanised rubber or wood, and they protect the lid hinges as the piano is being moved about in concert halls. They were usually fitted to all American Steinway concert grands, and by could be requested on the Hamburg version. As for the Hamburg pianos of c.1965-2000 (by the way I'm pretty sure it's a Hamburg Steinway Roger is playing on Unblinking Eye, and it could be the Mountain Studio one), they were routinely finished a satin ebony although there were polyester ones, and they proved to be very popular because stage lights didn't cause so much glare on them. The satin finish is slightly cheaper than the high gloss polyester but not by much. Nowadays the Hamburg D is finished in Polyester except for the top of the top lid, and the underside of the fly lid, which is finished in satin, to prevent lights glaring members of a symphony orchestra when the piano is on stage.... The differences between Hamburg and NYC Steinways are more than just cosmetic, and there are some important differences in the build and the action which make for a very different sounding piano. Interestingly enough, Freddie's touring Steinway was bought 2nd hand, and I never quite understood that, unless it was just he liked that particular piano. |
| Vocal harmony 09.02.2018 00:29 |
As I said it was the "cheaper" option. Yes it was bought second hand, because even a band as successful as Queen were had financial and economic limits on buying gear The rails (wooden) fitted to Freddie's piano were deeper than standard for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Talking about costs, as spectacular as Queen's 1977/78 crown lighting rig was the production wasn't as big or as expensive as Floyd's Animals tour or the Rolling Stones 76 US tour. |
| Sebastian 09.02.2018 02:50 |
miraclesteinway wrote: Interestingly enough, Freddie's touring Steinway was bought 2nd handSource? By the way, last year at the 'Innuendo' thing Noel (I assume) debunked the myth about the Fazioli. |
| miraclesteinway 18.08.2018 17:07 |
link This is the source. I think this is Ratty's site, and he claims Freddie bought the Steinway piano in around 1977 or 1978 (earliest photo being in 1978, although I think this is also the piano used at Earl's Court....), and that the piano was made in 1972. link |
| Sebastian 18.08.2018 19:01 |
It's not Ratty's site. The fact the piano was made in 1972 and Frederick bought it in 1977 doesn't guarantee it was second hand. |
| miraclesteinway 19.08.2018 11:17 |
No, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was second hand. I have never known a Steinway D to sit in a showroom for 5 years unused though. I don't know how things were economically for Steinway or the USA in 1972-77, so I don't know if an instrument would have sat on a showroom floor for all that time. It's likely the piano was a concert hire instrument and was put into stock after 5 years of hiring. It's not unusual for musicians to buy used Steinways even when they can afford brand new ones. It's likely that Freddie would have been looking for a piano with a clear and cutting sound that would work well in the band situation. Yeah I know they mic it up with helpistill pickups, but the tone still has to be bright to start with. Glenn Gould and Horowitz both had used instruments because they liked those particular pianos, both could well afford any piano they wanted. |
| miraclesteinway 19.08.2018 11:18 |
oh on Metropolis's Facebook Page, John Brough has commented that Freddie did not buy the Fazioli, and did not use the Fazioli, and whoever connected the Fazioli to Freddie has been misinformed. |
| Fireplace 23.08.2018 19:37 |
And besides, the library is no better than most piano libraries, at twice the size and CPU-load. |
| Dr Magus 24.08.2018 08:56 |
Freddie bought his piano from Argos. Just to clear that one up. |
| Sebastian 29.08.2018 01:32 |
Argos was Frederick's favourite shop. |