Why I think Montreal is overdubbed

Sir GH wrote: Bad Seed wrote:

The original sound was recorded by Mack, mixed and produced by Mack and Queen.

For the 1984 release, you mean?  Does it specifically say that?

Honestly, I can't picture Queen having had creative control here.  The audio was out of synch with the video in so many places on every We Will Rock You release, VHS and DVD.  Queen always had the highest of standards for their musical output, and there's no way they would have allowed these glaring errors to be released if they could have done anything about it.
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Actually after having another look today it only says Mack. I think Queen will have mixed the sound but then left Mobilevision to synch it to the footage.

Anyway, after many hours of watching and watching again I now have pretty much concrete evidence that Freddie went in the studio sometime in late '81 or '82 record overdubs. Will post soon.

Ok, I've spent many hours today watching both RM, WWRY and listening to the audience recording looking for any evidence of overdubs, and I found some!!!
First of all I can't confirm RM has any vocal overdubs but still stand by what I've said in the past! If anything I'm more sure now than I was before.
I can confirm that the original WWRY does have vocal overdubs by Freddie. So therefore Freddie has been in the studio at some point before its original release.

You will have to listen to all three of the following to understand:

The following is from WWRY. Its the same on all versions which I have. Listen to Freddies vocal from 7:28-7:36

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaBcaoZeek

The following is from RM. Listen to the same part from 3:22-3:27

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZFkL1aFAUc

Hear the difference? Now this could easily be put down switching audio from the 2 nights, but its not!

If you listen to the following from Greg's audience recording its different again. Listen 2:45-2:52

http://www.youtube.com/user/Gregsynthbootlegs?feature=chclk#p/search/0/Z4h6YGFFhd0

So here we have THREE seperate vocal takes from only two nights. I believe that the WWRY version has the overdub and it was removed for RM. But if you notice on this overdubbed line, Freddie sounds exactly as he does during the songs that I have already mentioned.

Bad seed, i had a quick listen and they are indeed very different sounding. The WWRY version sounds the worst, and Freddies much louder in that
part, and in a completely different part of the stereo field. Judging from the shoddy sound mix through out the rest of WWRY it's probably the overdub.

So unless it's some kind of mix of lines from both nights, it's proof.......

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To reply to the above, I think its more likely Freddie did sing the
line but the mistake was made when editing the footage, although I
could be wrong of course.
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Yes looking at it now i see what people are saying, he's mouthing "recommended" and they put the clip in too early. Queen productions patched it up, like the start of now im here.

Excellent work, Bad Seed !  Excellent x 1000.

So the "original" release has dubs, but the "Rock Montreal" version doesn't? My head's spinning!

And Bad Seed has great ears (I had to add that)!

I wonder what other songs WWRY has dubs on...

So the "original" release has dubs, but the "Rock Montreal" version doesn't? My head's spinning!

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Probably has less, we can't say for certain that it has No dubs.

Depends on what queen productions own really, i doubt a company that threw out all of the footage it cut (Flash and the Hero) would have kept the master tapes from Freddie's overdubs, if they did we wouldn’t have the same sound track and sync issues every WWRY release.

I think it's reasonable to guess that when queen productions rebuilt the audio from scratch, they had very little; if not none of the stuff Freddie re-recorded.

i think Bad Seed implyed that now im here is still overdubbed though?

Bad Seed wrote:
The original sound was recorded by Mack, mixed and produced by Mack and Queen.

Sir GH wrote:
For the 1984 release, you mean?  Does it specifically say that?
Honestly, I can't picture Queen having had creative control here.  The audio was out of synch with the video in so many places on every We Will Rock You release, VHS and DVD.

The actual credit says "Concert sound production by Mack". Hmmm...

Sir GH wrote:
Queen always had the highest of standards for their musical output, and there's no way they would have allowed these glaring errors to be released if they could have done anything about it.

Just three words: LIVE IN RIO.

And Queen didn't *always* have the highest standards. They did let some mistakes make it to the final versions (even if that's 0.001% of the cases). The G/F on Fat Bots for instance.

The audience recording and the RM versions sound the same to me.  Am I really the only one who thinks that?
What part, specifically (I know it's just a small snippet, but I really can't hear a difference) sounds changed?

kohuept wrote: The audience recording and the RM versions sound the same to me.  Am I really the only one who thinks that?

No I agree. It sounds the same, but maybe someone can point the difference, if there is any, out to us.

Thanks to Bob and Greg for your kind comments!

I still think the RM versions of  NIH, JR and BR (rock section only), are overdubbed. However WWRY contains far more overdubs.

For the people mentioning 'bleeding', this would not happen. First of all Freddie has'nt overdubbed to alter lines or fix mistakes. I think he has sang the line/song exactly as the original recording, just with more power and aggression. The bleed would not be noticable. Also the Montreal shows seemed to be recorded very dry, with very little ambience. This would make any sound bleed far more difficult to happen.

Here are another couple of examples, although nothing concrete:

Here is NIH from WWRY, listen from 4:52 'Just a new man'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60UwZopJkGs

I think from 4:52 onwards the song is heavily overdubbed. The word 'eye' at 6:07 is interesting to compare with RM, although I think most people will have already noticed this before.

Here it is from RM, listen from 0:49 'Just a new man'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p723H5f0opc

Here the line 'Just a new man' is left unaltered, and unlike WWRY the overdub starts from 'Yes you made me live again' at 0:52. I think this song is entirely overdubbed until 'eye' at 2:03.

I must stress that this is only my opinion, and that I would love to be proved wrong. But he sings this song, BR, and JR exactly like the overdubbed line in SHA.

That is true about the ambience of the Rock Montreal record. My guess is that if Freddie did re-sing those lines you mentioned, he must have sung them identical (or very similar) over the original audio--because if you sing the same line over a recording, you can get that "phasing" or "chorus" effect (from slight differences in pitch, etc). I don't hear that effect on those lines--though I do notice that more "aggressive" tone you are talking about.

I ain't ruling out the overdub theory, I'm just making alternative points.

Overdub is an interesting issue... everybody does it... Well, the WWRY (Montreal) has two nights sampled and that´s why we have different voices and chords. The VHS version is terrible, with too much treble and no bass, the voice in BH is "screaming and thin" (sorry, I don´t know english very well) and only the new DVD (and Blu-ray) version corrects it. And, by the way, who is "Brandon" or something like that in the middle of Jailhouse Rock? That´s what Fred said after listening Brian too close: "What... Brandon!". Live Killers is a overdubed record but, for me, the best ever recorded. We did not have the videos of the shows in Brazil, so I could imagine by the pictures f the vinil how was the atmosphere... Lucky people those who saw them in 1979/1980...