Hi there everyone.
A while back there was talk of missing multitrack tapes in the Queen archives. Can anyone post details of this again, please. I am especially curious about claims that "News of the World" multitracks are missing. If this is so, how were the karaoke versions of "Spread You Wings" and "We Are The Champions" produced? Were the studios used to produce the karaoke versions the last known place these multitracks existed?
Well, firstly, Spread Your Wings was a faked 5.1, like the Freddie dvd tracks. They basically upmixed from the stereo track into 5.1.
I don't know if the same technique was applied to We Are The Champions.
Apart from this there have been smaller occurances of lost tracks, e.g. Coming Soon backing vox was pieced together from original and alternate vocal takes and was still not complete for the DVD-A that came out.
I think there are more, but none are coming to mind right now. It's a shame when these things happen. Even other bands have the same problem - tracks are either misplaced/lost or stolen. :(
Peace,
Adam.
The missing multitracks are:
All Dead, All Dead (I'm not sure about this one, but I think it is missing)
Coming Soon (final mix)
God Save The Queen
The Prophet's Song (a cappella section)
Sheer Heart Attack
Sleeping On The Sidewalk
Spread Your Wings
Staying Power
Who Needs You
And I believe there was a 10th one....can't remember what it was
And as for karaoke version of SYW...I believe they actually had that tape back when they did the CD in 1998 for Japanese exclusive release, and then it was either lost or stolen afterwards (although I do remember hearing a little bit of Freddie's voice in the background on the line "He spends his evenings alone...")
What I am wondering is HOW they got the guitar clip for the GVH1 menu instrumental version - perhaps that one has an alternate tape? Or maybe the karaoke version used a tape that had alternate vocals - I don't know, as I don't have access to or own the tapes (legally anyways)
We had a discussion of this once before.
Our conclusions were that either some elements of 'Spread Your Wings' still existed separately or perhaps the following was able to remove the vocals well enough: link
"This was one of the times I used the TC 6000 'unwrap' setting. This is a clever program that can turn a stereo mix into a 5.1 mix, like a really brilliant version of what most domestic AV amps can do. We used it for Spread Your Wings on GVH1 and the entire Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert DVD, but we would normally prefer to remix properly from the multi-tracks when possible."
Here's where you can find info about the 'TC 6000' link
"UnWrap is a professional stereo to 5.1 conversion processor for the music and film industry. Stereo to 5.1 conversion is not a one-size-fits-all process, because creative decisions put into the original mix need to be reflected in the 5.1 version. UnWrap therefore provides the user with a palette of different solutions, optimized individually for different types of source material. Some of the solutions enable bit transparent reconstruction of the original stereo signal.
Consequently, the output result is more stimulating than the original stereo version, regardless of the source material, if it is wet or dry, naturalistic or synthetic. UnWrap operates at Sample Rates up to 96 kHz."
And Inu is correct, you can hear 'He spends his' in the background as well as the final vocal 'Fly with me' normally towards the end.
And one more thing: The karaoke mixes were done originally for a laserdisc which was released in 1996, so perhaps the tape wasn't lost at that point. A lot can happen in 5 years or so.
That reminds me:
Has there been any mention of a new DVD-A lately? That last two came out in the Spring, but I have yet to hear anything about a new one. It's a shame because I have liked the first two and would hope that they get around to releasing more. The multi-tracks may be missing for NOTW, but as has been discussed before, there already has been significant work done on AKOM and The Miracle. Perhaps one of those could be released fairly easily.
I thought that "He spends his..." was in the karaoke version because they had the tape and that that line had somehow leaked onto one of the tracks within the multitrack.
I could be wrong though.
Oh, and the 10th missing multitrack I mentioned I knew of that was missing, is "My Melancholy Blues"
1) We Are The Champions multitrack master tapes aren't missing.
2) Spread Your Wings was 'upmixed' to 5.1 in the GVH1 DVD. For the GKH, an instrumental version of an alternative mix was used instead. It is not an uncommon practice to downmix some instrumental versions when you're in search of a final mix, so I'm pretty sure Justin simply mastered one of those downmixes. You can actually hear several (minor) differences not only in the instrument levels/pannings but also in the guitar parts used for the mix!
Wilki is right on that one about WATC.
Interesting on that bit about SWY, Wilki - I never knew that, I just wish I hadn't deleted my MP3s of the Karaoke album, cos now I wanna check to find those minor differences but I can't :(