Not sure if we're talking about the actual piano mic (ie the one mic'ing up the piano), or the vocal mic Freddie uses at the piano.
In either case, could they not release the parts of the gig where Freddie isn't using either? Not sure how many of the tracks feature the piano, but I'm sure someone could say? If it's something like 50% perhaps they could just release the rest as bonus material on something like the Houston gig?
Having said that, certainly some of the piano based stuff is useable as we've seen You Take My Breath Away, Millionaire's Waltz etc in official releases before.
The piano never had a mic on it. The system used was a Helpinstil piano pickup. Either attached to the inside of the lid or the sound board. It works in the same way as a humbucker guitar pickup works. FM's piano used two, one fed direct to the stage box and out to the FOH mixing desk. The other was used to power FM's monitoring system. The small control box which is always visible next to the piano keyboard was the control box for the system. It was fed into the two speaker cabs to Freddies right near the piano. A mono feed was taken from the second pickup to feed the FOH system incase the main system failed.
The mic drop outs that JB is talking about has to be FM's vocal mic. If they filmed and or recorded both nights then they could easily use the vocal recording from the other night to fill in any gaps. They've never been above "fixing" live recordings before.
Cheers - I wasn't aware that Freddie used the Helpinstill rather than mics on the road.
Unless it was these that failed, and Jim Beach is just not too clued up in the technicalities and just referred to these pick ups as 'a mic', then it does indeed seem that we are indeed dealing with the vocal mic at the piano as the issue preventing an Earls Court release; not insurmountable surely with two nights in the can?
Cheers - I wasn't aware that Freddie used the Helpinstill rather than mics on the road.
Unless it was these that failed, and Jim Beach is just not too clued up in the technicalities and just referred to these pick ups as 'a mic', then it does indeed seem that we are indeed dealing with the vocal mic at the piano as the issue preventing an Earls Court release; not insurmountable surely with two nights in the can?
i'd agree with this. it would appear the prob was about vocal mics - the various versions of the boots - esp dvd/videos i've seen have vocal "drop outs"
I'd be very surprised if both nights had the same problem. Surely if these shows were being recorded to multitrack at least one person would be responsible for recording the show and listening back to the recording. We know that there were no problems with the stage mics (apart from the odd drop out), so either the mic track was muted or there was a problem with the signal going to the multitrack. Even if this was the case on the first night it must have been remedied for the second.
I'm sure it's much less of a problem than what Beach is making out, if a problem at all.
