Techniques for Freddie Mercury/Queen high vocals?

[lostsound]

On songs with particularly high vocals like Bohemian Rhapsody or Ogre Battle are they using any particular effects or tools to boost the sound? Also curious about the chorus on We Will Rock You.

Even mixing tips of how they put vocals together to make those types of sounds would on the songs would be good.

I've got limited tools to work with.(A Shure SM 57 mic, with preamp choices either being a Digitech RP100 Digital Processor or a Behringer MIC100 Tube Ultragain Microphone Preamp with Limiter as )

I've got access to Goldwave and whatever other open source effects applications may exist.(I'll be recording with a computer obviously...)

Is there any particular effects I can use to make my vocals sound more like there hi sounds? I know I just may lack the skill or voice to emulate their sound but I just want to make sure its not some sort of effects or mixing techniques that they used that I'm overlooking and can afford

Thanks for your time.

[Micter]

All those guys are classically trained opera singers. I'm gonna bet if you think there is a remote possibility that you lack the talent.......well you get my drift.

[Seafroggys]

No effects....they're that good

Though I think they did throw a phaser on the harmonies in Killer Queen.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Not only great voices, but in some cases, a LOT of studio time and a LOT of studio work. They spent not several hours, but several months tracking and mixing Bohemian Rhapsody. That was a Brian-Wilson-ish type of studio production that one just can't simply reeproduce or itemize in a forum post. I wouldn't be suprised if somebody hasn't told the detailed story in a book or extended magazine article somewhere. I'd search Guttenberg and Amazon if I were you.

I remember seeing Queen in concert back in the very early 80s. Very expensive stage work and live production, of course, not a bad show. I remember we were especially waiting in anticipation to see how they handled Rhapsody live, knowing just how much of a studio Frankenstein the album version was.

What a cop out/rip off/disappointment that turned out to be: When they came to the sophisticated - and really the meat - part of the song in the middle, all of a sudden Freddie and co. run off stage, the stage lights dim a bit, the smoke machines come on, and they play over the PA a tape of the studio mix of the song while flashing some gelled lights through the fog!

They didn't even bother TRYING. They just played the tape for a couple of minutes, and then Freddie and co. came back on and finished off part 3 ("...nothing really matters...") of the song live.

G.

[Ironklad Audio]

there's no "tricks" out there that will magically make you sound like someone/something that you don't

remember that they were cutting those albums in the late 70's, when signal chains went mic-->console-->tape. there might be an eq/comp inserted between the console and tape, but that was it. no autotune, copy/paste, or any other silly digital tricks.

[RAMI]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

What a cop out/rip off/disappointment that turned out to be: When they came to the sophisticated - and really the meat - part of the song in the middle, all of a sudden Freddie and co. run off stage, the stage lights dim a bit, the smoke machines come on, and they play over the PA a tape of the studio mix of the song while flashing some gelled lights through the fog!

They didn't even bother TRYING.

I saw the same tour. They went off for a frickin' COSTUME CHANGE. Total bullshit. At least TRY, even if you don't completely nail it. I've seen cover bands do a not bad job on that part. QUEEN could afford to hire a choir...ANYTHING.

[RAMI]

Originally Posted by Ironklad Audio

silly digital tricks.

Awesome name for an album!

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by RAMI

I saw the same tour. They went off for a frickin' COSTUME CHANGE. Total bullshit. At least TRY, even if you don't completely nail it. I've seen cover bands do a not bad job on that part. QUEEN could afford to hire a choir...ANYTHING.

Agreed. It wouldn't have to be even an attempt at a duplication of what they did on the album; at least something creative would have been nice, though. You don't just stick on a tape and walk offstage. Yeesh.

G.

[Seafroggys]

I have a video of Brian May going through the master mix of the song and explaining the entire recording process of the song.

[Tim Brown]

Originally Posted by lostsound

On songs with particularly high vocals like Bohemian Rhapsody or Ogre Battle are they using any particular effects or tools to boost the sound? Also curious about the chorus on We Will Rock You.

Even mixing tips of how they put vocals together to make those types of sounds would on the songs would be good.

I've got limited tools to work with.(A Shure SM 57 mic, with preamp choices either being a Digitech RP100 Digital Processor or a Behringer MIC100 Tube Ultragain Microphone Preamp with Limiter as )

I've got access to Goldwave and whatever other open source effects applications may exist.(I'll be recording with a computer obviously...)

Is there any particular effects I can use to make my vocals sound more like there hi sounds? I know I just may lack the skill or voice to emulate their sound but I just want to make sure its not some sort of effects or mixing techniques that they used that I'm overlooking and can afford

Thanks for your time.

I read that they triple-tracked 17 vocal tracks to get the voices that thick on Bohemian Rhapsody.

Are you talking about Roger Taylor's super high feminine range voice?

Purchase "Raise Your Voice" by Jaime Vendera. It will teach you how to train your vocal chords to be able to get up there. (Jaime's got something along the lines of 6 to 6.5 octaves of range, and he can even do the Mariah Carrey whistle register! (The thing that sounds like a dolphin... I think that is also how David Lee Roth got those Van Halen whistle screams as well.)


http://www.thevoiceconnection.com


Tim

[lostsound]

Thanks for all the advice. Does this go the same for just heavy metal bands in general that use those high pitch voices like say Manowar?(no major effects besides a little eq, compression and vocal doubling )

Its really mostly their voices being double over a lot and sung with technique rather than any special effects to look out for?

I think I read that Queen eventually did perform Bohemian Rhapsody in a less broken up away eventually live.

[Farview]

Originally Posted by lostsound

Thanks for all the advice. Does this go the same for just heavy metal bands in general that use those high pitch voices like say Manowar?(no major effects besides a little eq, compression and vocal doubling )

I know the guys in Manowar and I've head Eric do that in the room. It's just him. I really don't think the double his vocals in the studio, just a little reverb. But I've only known them for the last 10 years, I can't tell you what went on in the 80's. But, in the 80's there wasn't much to cover up with. Eric is just that good. Being able to sing your parts used to be a prerequisite for being a singer.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by lostsound

Thanks for all the advice. Does this go the same for just heavy metal bands in general that use those high pitch voices like say Manowar?(no major effects besides a little eq, compression and vocal doubling )

It's impossible to generalize, everybody's got their own voices and their own bag of tricks. Even Queen didn't do every song the same way.

But for most of these bands you're referring to, it's usually 80% the vocalist and 20% the studio tricks. For those with voices, multitracking (doubling, tripling, etc.) is probably one of the more common methods used, though not guaranteed for any given production.

For those without voices, there are a million tricks from fancy chorusing to autotune algorithms, but you'll usually wind up sounding far more like a Material Girl than a Manowar.

G.

[chessrock]

Yea, with Queen, every guy in the band would double his part first, ... and then Freddie would go through each part and add another layer of his voice on every single part, so in essense, every part was trippled.

If you listen to some Alice in Chains, you'll hear a lot of Layne Staley / Jerry Kontrell doing that sort of thing ... where you have Jerry's voice doubled on every part, with Layne's single-tracked at least once on every harmony as well.

Which is actually sort of mild compared to what Mutt Lange has been known do do. Some people just have too much time on their hands in the studio.
.

[TerraMortim]

Originally Posted by Farview

I know the guys in Manowar and I've head Eric do that in the room. It's just him. I really don't think the double his vocals in the studio, just a little reverb. But I've only known them for the last 10 years, I can't tell you what went on in the 80's. But, in the 80's there wasn't much to cover up with. Eric is just that good. Being able to sing your parts used to be a prerequisite for being a singer.

That is because Manowar is the true vocal chords of fire and steel! Did any speakers explode that day? :P He's a great singer, anyway.

[TerraMortim]

MOOOORE MOOOOORE TRACKS!!!! I'm going to track 350 vocal overdubs tonight! BAWAHAHAHAHA. =D Fredie just had an un-humanly amazing voice.. you could do so many tracks that you'd have to fill a warehouse with the tape/hard drives in order to store it and it still wouldn't be FM.

[RAMI]

Originally Posted by TerraMortim

MOOOORE MOOOOORE TRACKS!!!! I'm going to track 350 vocal overdubs tonight! BAWAHAHAHAHA. =D Fredie just had an un-humanly amazing voice.. you could do so many tracks that you'd have to fill a warehouse with the tape/hard drives in order to store it and it still wouldn't be FM.

Exactly.

It kills me, and this is no offense to the OP because I was probably asking the same questions when I started out....but when people think it just takes a certain button or effect or plug-in to accomplish what people with BIG talent spent years honing their craft to accomplish. And we're not only talking about practice, though that's probably 90% of it. But these people have paid their dues... by playing in shitty bars 5 nights a week and practicing during the day in the hotel room because the bar is a restaurant by day. Sleeping 5 in a shitty hotel room, travelling on their day off. Singing in shitty rooms with no monitors in front of a crowd that's screaming for them to get off the fucking stage and dodging beer bottles while still telling themselves that they have to give 100% because you never know who's watching you. Hoping you'll get paid at the end of the week in some town where the club owner owns the cops and he kept telling you to turn down the volume the whole fucking week.

I'm over-dramatizing...but the point is, by the time Freddie Mercury sang "Bohemian", or Robert Plant sang "Stairway" or James Brown sang "Brand New Bag"...........their practice and experience was the gravel in their voice. And their talent was their ticket to the other side. Nobody has invented a plug-in for that yet. Most of us are still stuck on this side.

That's why we're still listening to and talking about Bohemian Rhapsody 35 years later.....And that's why we WON'T be talking about (insert latest pop star) in 6 months.

[TerraMortim]

absolutely. Quick success equals quick obscurity. Pulling yourself up by your fingernails until they fall off, and then using your bloody fingertips, sticking to what you feel, and what is real to you, no matter how much shit you get for it...or how many imbiciles tell you it's stupid, that's where success can come from, as long as you have luck, and maybe something people want to hear.

[TerraMortim]

oh yeah, Bohemian rhapsody is a wonderful piece of music. =D Just had to state the obvious.

[RAMI]

Originally Posted by RAMI

Exactly.

It kills me, and this is no offense to the OP because I was probably asking the same questions when I started out....but when people think it just takes a certain button or effect or plug-in to accomplish what people with BIG talent spent years honing their craft to accomplish. And we're not only talking about practice, though that's probably 90% of it. But these people have paid their dues... by playing in shitty bars 5 nights a week and practicing during the day in the hotel room because the bar is a restaurant by day. Sleeping 5 in a shitty hotel room, travelling on their day off. Singing in shitty rooms with no monitors in front of a crowd that's screaming for them to get off the fucking stage and dodging beer bottles while still telling themselves that they have to give 100% because you never know who's watching you. Hoping you'll get paid at the end of the week in some town where the club owner owns the cops and he kept telling you to turn down the volume the whole fucking week.

I'm over-dramatizing...but the point is, by the time Freddie Mercury sang "Bohemian", or Robert Plant sang "Stairway" or James Brown sang "Brand New Bag"...........their practice and experience was the gravel in their voice. And their talent was their ticket to the other side. Nobody has invented a plug-in for that yet. Most of us are still stuck on this side.

That's why we're still listening to and talking about Bohemian Rhapsody 35 years later.....And that's why we WON'T be talking about (insert latest pop star) in 6 months.

......or something.

[boingoman]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

They didn't even bother TRYING. They just played the tape for a couple of minutes, and then Freddie and co. came back on and finished off part 3 ("...nothing really matters...") of the song live.

G.

I remember reading an article with Brian May talking about that- they tried for months to work something out, and weren't satisfied, and also refused to sing or play along with any kind of backing tracks. Which I thought was fine until I saw a local cover band play a quite excellent version of the song, complete with middle part. And of course, I didn't pay to see the real concert with the taped middle part.

[lostsound]

So would this also include the Flash Gordon theme song, particularly the opening "Flash, aahhhhhhhhaaahhhhhhh saviour of the universe"

Nothing super special effects wise, just chorusing and perhaps the effect of backing synths?

Sorry that I didn't have this in mind earlier.

I just want to make sure I get it right that I have to rely more on talent than just overlooking something else with my novice experience.

[notsocoolguy]

Heres a useful bit of info copyed fro wikipedia

Brian May, Mercury and Roger Taylor sang their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 200 separate overdubs.[2] Since the studios of the time only offered 24-track analogue tape, it was necessary for May, Mercury and Taylor to overdub themselves many times, and "bounce" these down to successive sub mixes. In the end, eighth generation tapes were being used.[1] The tapes had passed over the recording heads so many times the normally opaque tapes could be seen through, as the oxide layer was beginning to wear off.[3] The various sections of tape containing the desired sub mixes would have to be cut with razor blades and reassembled together in the correct sequence using adhesive tape, a process known as splicing.

[BushmasterM4]

Run your vocal track through the free vst Camel Crusher. You will get some cool vocals out of that.

[Nakatira]

I know there are some intresting stuff on youtube regarding this song.

From the recording sessions, interviews and so on.


I think one of Queens trademarks (as mentioned) was the Massivly dubbed Choirs and The same went with the Guitars.

I think Freddie was the main part to why queens choirs sound so good, he was very into it.
Listen to the backing vox on Love of My life, and you can easily hear that he`s classicly trained, or at least with lots of knowlegde on the matter.

He also did most of the voices himself, Roger the the highest stuff, but other than that freddie did the most overdubs.


I remember when I first got the album Night at the opera, it was long after I heard Bohemian Rhapsody to death on the Best of album.

One of the songs that really caught my attention on that album was the tune The Prophet's Song.

After a while into that tune Freddie starts on an acapella piece wich lasts for a minute or so.
It sounds great, really great.

I remember playing this for a girlfriend of mine and she was no musican but I`ll never forget what she said, when I played her the acapella piece.

His voice is just music alone, he`s just got that special voice.

Very few things I`ve heard said about Freddie Mercury (Farouk Bulsara), have been more accurate.


Btw did either of you know that Freddie was a Boxer at young age, apparntly a quite good one