Killer Queen

[Cary]

I can't believe how bad the tom mics sound on both sets, but especially on killer queen--totally distorted.  but listen in the mix and its fine.  I don't think its all tape saturation either--sounds like the mic is toally overloaded.
...

I'm sure this is an eye opener for most.  Reading about these tracks on another site, someone who has a few grammy's under their belt said something like, "it''s more about knowing what to leave in, not trying to edit out all the bad'.

And yes, those distorted drum sounds.  His toms always sounded great on the records.

[CurtisDowney66]

I downloaded the tracks also, some very interesting stuff.  I did a quick mix of Killer Queen, just for chucks.  I haven't listened to the original mix in years, and purposely didn't before I did this mix, so as not to sway my thoughts on the mix.  (I hope it's ok to post it)...
Curtis

[Blades]

Hey Curtis - overall, this sounds pretty good, more verb than the original, but mostly good.  You appear to be missing two of the backup vocal traks - there should be two parts that are lower in pitch than what made it to your mix.  For what it's worth

[Sternen]

I have been out of the loop between work kids and illness....  and addicted to trying to mix these things.     What a learning experience!!!!

Here is the mix of BR I did....

http://peteclimie.com/cc/br1.mp3

[meekofnature]

Yeah, those tracks are great.  I've got 3 Queen songs and 3 Marvin Gaye ones as well.  A buddy of mine had a Doobie Brothers tracks that sounded AMAZING, but wouldn't give it up. 

Some of those tracks are distorted as hell.  A lot of it seems move excessive than the distortion of the final product.  It's tough, these tracks probably slipped out because some intern ran into the vault, slapped the tape on the reel in the middle of the night, did a quick transfer to a DAW, packed it up and got the hell out.  Anyone caught doing this transfer would get in a shit ton of trouble, so they were probably in a big hurry.  The tape machine was likely not properly calibrated, or was calibrated for a different reference level of tape...   Who knows!

In any case these tracks are a trip!  It's really neat to see some of the raw sounds and clues you off to how they miced drums, guitars..and such.  Things happen so differently now...  Oh if I could travel in time...

-Marc

[detune]

You can get the Doobie Brothers one via torrent:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22multitrack+masters%22

The isolated string section is the best part of the Marvin Gaye stuff.  It's so good it can stand alone.

Mark