I Want To Break Free (Technical Informaion)

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]FriedChicken wrote: [/QUOTENAME]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.

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I'm pretty sure Brian cleared this up a while ago... he seems to be under the impression that the solo was a synth only affair.
It might be in this guitar magazine I have floating around where he was interviewed by Nuno Bettencourt;
either that, or I read it on his Soapbox. Or somewhere else.

Baaaaah! Can't remember.

It's a synth in the solo although at some parts near the end it seems that the real guitar joins in briefly, quieter in the mix. It seems to use the same patch as the bass sound near the end of the song (of course in a much higher octave), but with something like an envelope filter (aka wah) effect to emulate a wah pedal, the bass sound is clean (as in no other effects but these in the patch). And lots of pitch wheels too. The strings sound can be replicated with almost any decent strings patch.

About the percussion: out of tune is not the same as dissonant...

I read that Brian recorded a normal guitar solo and the others hated it so Fred Mandel recorded a synth solo. Wether it was based on Brian's original I don't know!

My comment about the dissonent cowbell seems to have raised healthy debate - always a good thing ;-)

I thought it was a decision by John to NOT have another guitar solo and wanted the synth instead.

The links in the second post aren't working, any suggestions?

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[b]PartyGirl wrote: [/b]

The links in the second post aren't working, any suggestions?
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Fixed it. QZ is screwing up links these days. Even ones that were fine before, it seems! Anyway, it's fixed now.

Adam.

A little while ago I got into a rather random correspondence with Fred Mandel's wife, which I'm sure I'll have mentioned on here previously.

Naturally, I had a few questions for her regarding Fred's work with the boys.

Regarding the IWTBF solo she confirmed, after asking Fred (Mandel, obviously), that the solo was fully conceived and played by him (Mandel). It's a little known fact that he's as proficient on guitar as he is on piano, and so, when he constructed the solo on the synth, he had his 'guitar brain' in and his 'keyboard hands' on, and subsequently came up with the Brian-esque solo that appears on the finished song as we know it.

True story.

Great info. Thanks.

What else did she tell you about Fred's work with Queen?

Not much Seb.

I think I only asked about the 'candy floss' on Hammer To Fall, and the ending to Man On The Prowl. Fred simply confirmed he played on HTF, rather than elaborating as to why he was chosen to play the very simple keyboard parts or explaining why that playing was termed 'candy floss'; and he said that MOTP was originally intended to fade out. At the end of the song he was just 'goofing around', safe in what he thought was the knowledge that he was past the point where the song was to fade out. Obviously somebody then decided during the mix to end the track abruptly rather than use the fade out idea.

I think that was it.

Fred doesn't mention anything deeper on his MySpace either...