I Want To Break Free (Technical Informaion)

Hello To all the extensive Queen community,

I am currently studying Audio Engineering and I have a Serious Critical Listening Analysis assignment to do for which i have chosen the Queen song, 'I Want To Break Free'

I was hoping that the more dedicated Queen lovers would be able to help me out with some technical data, the more the better, i.e which guitars and bass were used, the into synth model and any information you may have on how they actually recorded I Want To Break Free would be much appreciated, please help, Georgie.

I guess this is what you're looking for - [url=http://sebastian.queenconcerts.com/g-songs-11-06.htm]http://sebastian.queenconcerts.com/g-songs-11-06.htm[/url] 





























Good to hear from another engineer!















Adam.

I was just about to suggest that...

Re the synth at a guess it will have been the Korg M1 which I beleieve they were using around that time. Sorry nothing definate though.

Korg M1's didn't exist in 1983-1984.

The only things i know is that the solo is a synth and not Brian´s guitar.
I´ve heard that the bass was synth too, but acording to sebastian site it seems that an electric bass was used. I´m not shure about this one.


Take care

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Bobby_brown wrote: [/QUOTENAME]The only things i know is that the solo is a synth and not Brian´s guitar.
I´ve heard that the bass was synth too, but acording to sebastian site it seems that an electric bass was used. I´m not shure about this one.


Take care[/QUOTE]

You know I actually had never thought the solo was anything but guitar, but I think that was me being blinded by the live versions - listening back now theres something about the way its played which doesnt have the feel of a guitar, or Bri's playing - synth it is!
There you go - you learn something every day.

You know, Brian once won a magazine poll for doing that 'guitar' solo!

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Sebastian wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Korg M1's didn't exist in 1983-1984.[/QUOTE]

Tru nuff tru nuff, just checked back 88 would appear to be the first production issue.

Well there you go I said nothing definate, infact it turned out to be nothing useful!!!

I thought it was the Fairlight Queen debuted on The Works.

Fred's solo is on a Jupiter 8, that's a dead cert. The other parts could use other keyboards, or even a combination of them to make a fat sound.

I own a Roland Juno-D and it's got a patch called 'Jupiter Strings' - basically the Jupiter 8 string patch and it IS the intro chords to the song (no contest!)
Hope this helps.
Also, is it just me or does the cowbell sound really dissonant to the rest of the instrumentation and the key (E)?!

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Adam Baboolal wrote: [/QUOTENAME]I guess this is what you're looking for - http://sebastian.queenconcerts.com/g-songs-11-06.htm

Good to hear from another engineer!

Adam.[/QUOTE]

I agree! And defenately female engineers!
Good job!

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]earwig wrote: [/QUOTENAME]I own a Roland Juno-D and it's got a patch called 'Jupiter Strings' - basically the Jupiter 8 string patch and it IS the intro chords to the song (no contest!)
Hope this helps.
Also, is it just me or does the cowbell sound really dissonant to the rest of the instrumentation and the key (E)?![/QUOTE]

Is there something wrong with dissonants??


It's totally okay for percussion to sound dissonant

I think the solo was played with a guitar through a vocoder, or a synth with an input of some kind.

First I thought it was a synth playing. But then I noticed that you can really hear Brian's guitar playing style in the synth sound. So it must be a guitar solo played through a synth.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]FriedChicken wrote: [/QUOTENAME][QUOTE][QUOTENAME]earwig wrote: [/QUOTENAME]I own a Roland Juno-D and it's got a patch called 'Jupiter Strings' - basically the Jupiter 8 string patch and it IS the intro chords to the song (no contest!)
Hope this helps.
Also, is it just me or does the cowbell sound really dissonant to the rest of the instrumentation and the key (E)?![/QUOTE]

Is there something wrong with dissonants??


It's totally okay for percussion to sound dissonant[/QUOTE]

It depends, really; dissonance is permissible at all times, in all instruments, but it works better in some places in some songs than in others. I wouldn't go so far as to say "percussion can sound dissonant". That may be an effect you wish to add to some songs, but I certainly wouldn't use it at all times.