C_Matt's "Queen II (HD Revision)"

We're waiting. Porfa.

"Fuck today, it's tomorrow."

Hello you all! I'm alive and I've read all of your comments. Thank you very much! Tomorrow I'll dedicate the necessary time to respond correctly.

Holy fuck that mix was amazing!!!!!

The Invisible Mix! :D

I would love to have Bernard's watch!

When I say "tomorrow", I mean "the next week", and when I say "the next week", I mean "the next month". Be careful with my timing issues :D

Happy to hear you liked the song! I gave to it the final touches and now I can say it's 99% finished. The EQ was balanced, as the volume from the different instruments. And the pan is a bit more enhanced and sounds great to me, trough not the extreme original one. I was too excited to upload something that I uploaded something unfinished with TFFMS.

I'm affraid that it can't be done anything like multitracks or 5.1 mixes as we know them simply because I don't have the elements to do that.

I'm working really hard with TMotBQ, it has lots of really interesting elements. Expand all of them is not an easy task. I'm doing some modifications to the bass to make it a bit more heavy at some specific points (actually, transposing it a lower octave), and... well, it changes the whole song weight, for good. But mainly it remains untouched from what John played.

It's very interesting to know how they experimented with the stereo technollogy at the early 70's! SHA sounds more balanced. But 'Jazz' is another story with the panning and the volume levels.

Brians Wig, I'm sorry but I couldn't understand 100% your question. I think you are wondering if new elements were put in the mix. If it's that the question, then the answer would be yes and no: I try to work mainly with the information which is in the song, but sometimes the song is so muddy that the sounds are lost and it's really hard to recover them. Then I have to use different sources to reconstruct some parts. Now, what I can promise is that in this album Queen members are the only ones playing!

I love the "Come to see the master-stroke" part too!

The invisible mix lol!

SSoR is the only song in the album which I hear like a muddy ball. It's not mono, but sounds like if it would be almost mono. Here I bring to you the version I've been working on with!

[i]
[/i][b][i]Seven Seas of Rhye:[/i]

General:[/b]
   -The song is now on it's original recording speed.
   -The song is so much wider and clearer.
   -The explosions now explode.
   -No more cracks during the song, specially the ending.
   -Later fade out for the toms.
   -Slower volume decay at the very end.
   -Less invasive... wind instrument at the very end and more acapella feeling.

[b]Drums:[/b]
   -More presence to the buried drums.
   -Cleaner hi-hat sound.
   -More understandable kicks.
   -Stronger snare.
   -Weightier toms, with body.
   -Cleaner cymbals.
   -Wider tambourines

[b]Vocals:[/b]
   -Wider vocals, not so mono sound.
   -Stereo expanded backing vocals.
   -Cleaner vocals and more distinguishable gamma. 
   -No more microphone "MPHMPH" sounds.
   -A bit louder "I'll take you to the Seven Seas of Rhye" at the end.
   -Lowered down some annoying "SSS" at the "senators" part.

[b]Guitar:[/b]
   -The guitars no longer take over the song.
   -Wider guitars.
   -Cleaner and more distinguishable sound between all the guitars.
   -Sharper guitars, which make this song more rocker and less muddy.
   -Stereo expanded guitar ornamentations, separatedly.
   -Enhanced the guitar crazy sounds during the guitar solo.
   -No more volume crazy ups and downs (ex. right after the guitar solo).
   -Naked guitars can be heard, creating new feelings (ex. 0:50, 1:48...).
   -Eliminated lots of clicks from the guitar tracks.

[b]Piano:[/b]
   -Wider piano, opener sound.
   -The piano is not anymore on mono.
   -You can notice the honky-tonk piano during the whole song now.

[b]Bass:[/b]
   -No more muddy sound.
   -A lot more of weight and enhancement
   -More solid and defined sound.
   -Panned the second bass ornamentation.

Loudly enjoy it!

.

That's a nice mix. The drums and vocals certainly sound a lot better, but I'd like to hear some of the little twiddly bits of guitar a little clearer, such as the 'trumpet call' after "I challenge the mighty titan and his troubadours", and also the 'roar' after "Then I'll get you..." is rather buried.

For your 'bonus mixes', could you have a look at making a 'non-seaside' version, ie, without the seaside ending? You could either use the extended drum outro from the QII 2011 remaster, or perhaps use the stems to create a 'dead' ending, so it just ends on one power chord? That would be brill. :)

[QUOTE] [b]C_Matt wrote:[/b]



I'm affraid that it can't be done anything like multitracks or 5.1 mixes as we know them simply because I don't have the elements to do that.

Brians Wig, I'm sorry but I couldn't understand 100% your question. I think you are wondering if new elements were put in the mix. If it's that the question, then the answer would be yes and no: I try to work mainly with the information which is in the song, but sometimes the song is so muddy that the sounds are lost and it's really hard to recover them. Then I have to use different sources to reconstruct some parts. Now, what I can promise is that in this album Queen members are the only ones playing!

.[/QUOTE]


Hi Matt. Firstly a surround mix. I've used audition in the past to make my own by doing centre channel extracts (and a bit more) to use as "rear speaker" outputs.
I just thought that as you are more skilled than I am, maybe you could do a better job?

Secondly. When I said about not adding bits, I was thinking about your "The Works" remaster where you increased the length of "Keep Passing" by using the 12" mix. This is what I meant by not adding anything. Keep the tracks as they are but improve the sound.
I like what you've done with 7 Seas though - the longer drum fade out is nice :)
Thanks.

Can you do anything with Flash Gordon? That's a terrible sounding album!

I had a really bad day at work... And you just found the perfect way to boost my soul again ! Thanks for that one ! Great job ! Your interpretation of the songs we all know by heart is always like a deep breath of fresh air to me. I'm sure the full album will kick my ass... as it already did so many times.

I´m knocked out, Matt ... knocked out !! another gift you´re so kindly sharing with your friends here :-)

was blown away yesterday while listening for the first time thru my headphones. It´s such a joy to feel this way when we´re talking about listening to a song we´ve already heard trillions of times !

I agree, though, with Lord Fickle´s comments above regarding the small guitar bits. Through headphones I don´t consider it to be a big issue, but this morning I listened in my car (have a good equipment there!) and, yes, I found those bits barely noticeable. Would be great having them sound much punchier, as I consider these are very recognizable / iconic elements in the song.

Anyways ...... GRRRREAT JOB AS USUAL !!!

Queen II HD will kickk our asses ! :-)))

Hello, Cmat. Your works are very nice.
I'm very fond of your revision....
What progam do you use for your revisions?
:-)

I've just a question: What do you think about my mixes?

http://www.mediafire.com/download/bor0jcawoba7wlv/WWRY_EP.rar

Thanks for your comments! I'm working hard with SDOD and the 5th section (to me) of TMotBQ. I balanced a little bit more the guitar volumes again in SSoR and now is sounding even rocker!

General Smile, I use Audition 3.0 to do all my works. I'm really glad that you like them! When you're doing a mix (for pure joy, for fun, a serious work...) you have to check some things that make it being coherent and listentable: check there are no tempo issues, check everything is in the correct note and matchs, check the volume levels between elements, check the EQ, the panning. Keep in mind that there's no perfect mix for everybody ears, but before uploading it, you could do what I do: show it to some people around you (in my case to a friend with great music knowledge and musical hearing) to see if is good as it is or something needs to be changed. :)

Cheers!

Today 1 month since last update :'(
And my F5 worn-out

Hola Pablo! Es verdad, pasó bocha de tiempo, pasó volando. Justo iba a subir un tema hace un par de días, pero no tuve tiempo.

Hello all! I've working slowly with the album, since I need at least two hours in a row to start, test and finish a minimal change in a song... Imagine that with 29 songs! The project is more alive than ever. As soon as I have almost every song finished I'll upload a teaser. I'm evaluating the posibility of making some stripped mixes or a 5.1 mix... but I see it a bit far since I don't have the corresponding elements for any of both.

Now, here I upload the last song that I almost finished. It had me a lot of time working with it, but I like the final result. I can't stop imagine how could this song change if I had the multitracks, a LOT of potential hidden here and there. Anyway, it sounds refreshing and really powerful to me now, enjoy it very very much!

[b][i]White Queen[/i][/b]

[b]General:[/b]
   -Greatly reduced the permanent hiss during the whole song.
   -Not so empty feeling, more ambiental.
   -So much more wider and open sound, the song now breaths, it was a bit opaque.
   -The climax part goes uprising till it gives you some shivers, it explodes a bit better to me.
   -Extended the very end just a few seconds.

[b]Drums:[/b]
   -More epic gong at the beginning.
   -Brighter cymbals.
   -Weightier toms, sometimes inaudible before.
   -Les "cheap hit" sound to the toms, like plastic.
   -Centered kicks, which were panned to the left.
   -Cleaner kicks, more weight.
   -Cleaned a lot of snare wire sounds that could be heard when Roger hits the kick or toms.
   -Cleaned a lot of snare wires during the whole song too (ex. 1:06).
   -A bit of reverb to the drums to make it more ambiental and epic.
   -Enhanced the ride and kick during the sitar solo, barely audible before.
   -More of body to the snare and less cheap sound.
   -Restored a lot of bright to the drums during the climax part.

[b]Vocals:[/b]
   -Not so muddy Freddie, more crystal voice.
   -Freddie is more on the front now.
   -So much more audible backing vocals at 1:30.
   -At the powerful parts, Freddie can be heard cleaner, he's not buried anymore.
   -More ambiental and audible backing vocals during the sitar solo.
   -Greatly increased the presence of the backing vocals during the "My Goddess hear..." part.

[b]Guitars & Others:[/b]
   -Brighter guitars at the intro.
   -Clearer acoustic guitar at 0:15.
   -Cleaner acoustic guitars during the whole song.
   -More ambiental acoustic guitars, some more audible than before.
   -Less muddy acoustic guitars sound, it was too carton-like.
   -Less muddy and more ambiental "oohs" guitars at 1:22.
   -Less muddy guitars at the first powerful part.
   -Harsher electric guitars at the powerful parts.
   -No more extreme panning to the guitars, more ambiental now. During the tranquil and heavy parts.
   -Louder acoustic guitars during the sitar solo.
   -Slightly panned to the left the sitar, so it's still in the front, but allows the acoustic guitars to be heard better.
   -Cleaner sitar sound.
   -No more muddy guitar sounds during the main climax part.
   -More distinguishable guitars during the climax part orchestration.
   -The guitar solo at the climax part is more audible now, but I couldn't do much about it since is really buried.

[b]Bass:[/b]
   -A lot more of weight to the bass.
   -A lot more of presence to the bass, mainly during the powerful pats.
   -Lowered down an octave to some very few parts to the bass, to allow the song explode.

.

IMPRESSIVE!
WQ has never sounded so good, great job!

for the "sitar" solo read this topic: http://www.queenzone.com/forums/1344978/white-queen-questions-.aspx
;)