Queen Under Pressure

[JohnH]

I have another Queen tribute gig this week. It's one of the hardest gigs to nail. I am going flat out this time to nail it. I have had a few w this band before.  I have been going and finding piano isolated for all the major piano songs we do. What a lifesaver! On some of these I was so far off it's laughable. You cannot hear everything when it's in the mix. Isolated is amazing to listen to! Freddie was totally underrated as a keyboard player. One of the greatest easily. I did not have these on our previous gigs.

 

I can usually find sounds that are close, but before I do., I thought I would ask here. What kind of keyboard is that keyboard that comes in during the song I think it's going D to A off the top of my head? it's kind of something you would find in either a synth pad category or Chorus Category of a keyboard . It's at 10 seconds here on the link. Surprisingly it sounds like Bowie brought his sax in too, I clearly hear Sax on this and horns later too. Never heard that on the regular version.

 

 

 

 

[Rod S]

It sounds a bit one of these 'vocal aahs' patches typically found in synths.  

 

I like the covers on David Bowie's concerts with Gail Ann Dorsey doing Freddie's parts.  Cool piano comp, but it changes the vibe a bit

 

 

[JohnH]

Yeah it reminds me of something off a D50 but of course that did not exist in 1981.

[Mighty Ferguson]

When I played this previously, I believe I used a french horn patch on the Kronos and it was quite close to the part you're asking about at :10.

[Tusker]

Apologies for not being helpful, but the shimmery thing (not the French horn) could be from a variety of acoustic sources, like a cymbal with beads on it, Or an early digital synth (like a PPG wave or synclavier or Casio VL-1) aliasing, or audio rate modulation on an analog synth like prophet (unlikely I know).

 

To my unqualified ears it sounds quite metallic and wobbly (LFO?), It seems to me if you get those elements, you'll be alright. Good luck. 

[kaptainkeys]

Sounds like a french horn type sound, could be from either the Fairlight or an Emulator I, at least that is my best guess.  I don't have much knowledge about the Mellotron's different tape sounds, but it is possible that it could be a Mellotron french horn sound, though unlikely.

[Bill H.]

In the analog realm two pulse waves with fairly high filter resonance should get the sound. There's pics of Freddie Mercury using an OB-Xa in the studio in the early 1980s. I'm guessing that's what was used. Try 12dB filter. 

[Dr88s]

I’ve covered this song a few times and I’ve decided to ignore that part altogether until I grow a third hand 😝

[MathOfInsects]

6 minutes ago, Dr88s said:

I’ve covered this song a few times and I’ve decided to ignore that part altogether until I grow a third hand 😝

Yeah, I've even done a full night of their stuff as the house band for one of those rotating singer tributes, and had no trouble at all deciding the only person who would miss that moment was Freddy Mercury, and he was unlikely to be there.

[Still VanDerGraaf]

14 hours ago, Bill H. said:

In the analog realm two pulse waves with fairly high filter resonance should get the sound. There's pics of Freddie Mercury using an OB-Xa in the studio in the early 1980s. I'm guessing that's what was used. Try 12dB filter. 

I don't think Queen used the Fairlight that early on. 

 

The Oberheim actually belonged to Roger Taylor. Was used a lot on The Game album. Could well be the culprit.

[JohnH]

Thanks very much for all of these great reponses! The Oberheim mention was very helpful! I found an OB8 sound and layered it with a Dark Modulation Pad on the Motif XF and got the sound.  Now it feels more like the record. It always bugged me I wasn't playing those synth parts. 

[DrEsophagus]

On 6/23/2022 at 9:17 PM, Dr88s said:

I’ve covered this song a few times and I’ve decided to ignore that part altogether until I grow a third hand 😝

I was considering using my 'third leg' if you get my drift.

[BluMunk]

Slightly off-topic, but I love how un-quantized this is. 
 

I’m so used to working to clicks, tightening things up on the computer, and, frankly, recording everything keyboard as MIDI. Particularly in the last few years, I’ve been training myself to feel like the pinnacle of “good playing” is how close to perfect I can be on the rhythms/timing.

 

It’s nice to hear this reminder that great tracks don’t necessarily require precision or slavish adherence to an unwavering tempo.

[JohnH]

Not bragging. This is so much hard work and I was filled with self doubt but I made it ! Im beyond thrilled with my performance on Sunday and the band noticed the improvement also. I went flat out to give a good show all week on one of the hardest catalogs there is for a keyboardist. I had some not so great shows with this band so I wanted to step it up.  I used the isolated tracks then also sliced up Bohemian Rhapsody to go over clips of sections  I was having the worst time with (parts of the Mama Mia- the one where that it descends after "He's just a poor boy from a poor family." Well duh,  I discovered that descending part repeats itself several times in the song at the end, the beginning and they are singing over it too just before it plays rapid fire after. ( they sing over the chords in question-: " Spare him his life from this monstrosity"  then the lick repeats itself)  I've never played the intro to Thunder Road by Bruce correctly (where he starts singing) so I am going to make some tracks out of that without vocals and slow it down. That is the key to success. Maybe it's rose colored glasses, The Doors didn't seem this hard and Chicago wasn't either. This is equal or harder than playing those songs. Doors is really tough because of the left hand bass. But I forgot how hard because I have been playing those songs in tributes for 17 years now.