UYI: The lost (?) Bob Clearmountain mixes

[soon]

10 hours ago, Blackstar said:

Slash: We did work with somebody – I won’t mention his name – that was using samples on the drums and, like, when Axl and I discovered it, we flipped, literally. We were like, “What?” You know, it was all these Guns N’ Roses samples he used. [MTV, May 25, 1991]

I never picked up on the idea that Clearmount was using "Guns N Roses samples" for Matts drums.

So, that would be samples of Stevens drumming. Steven's iconic drum sound. I gotta say, as much as I prefer an organic drum sound (which UYI lacks regardless) I could sure go for a Steven 'pop' snare sound on some UYI tracks. Think about a Reckless Life and Rocket Queen snare sound on the intro to Double Talking Jive. I think that would be great. Great in that GNR overwrought, outrageous way. But still great.

(Also, its kind of an echo of - or rather foreshadowing to - the whole Brain re-records Freese's parts note-for-note)

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by soon

[axlvai]

3 minutes ago, soon said:

I never picked up on the idea that Clearmount was using "Guns N Roses samples" for Matts drums.

So, that would be samples of Stevens drumming. Steven's iconic drum sound. I gotta say, as much as I prefer an organic drum sound (which UYI lacks regardless) I could sure go for a Steven 'pop' snare sound on some UYI tracks. Think about a Reckless Life and Rocket Queen snare sound on the intro to Double Talking Jive. I think that would be great. Great in that GNR overwrought, outrageous way. But still great.

 

That would be great to hear man!!! A question who almost every fan has made... how UYI would sound with Adler.... wow.

[Blackstar]

12 minutes ago, soon said:

I never picked up on the idea that Clearmount was using "Guns N Roses samples" for Matts drums.

So, that would be samples of Stevens drumming. Steven's iconic drum sound. I gotta say, as much as I prefer an organic drum sound (which UYI lacks regardless) I could sure go for a Steven 'pop' snare sound on some UYI tracks. Think about a Reckless Life and Rocket Queen snare sound on the intro to Double Talking Jive. I think that would be great. Great in that GNR overwrought, outrageous way. But still great.

(Also, its kind of an echo of - or rather foreshadowing to - the whole Brain re-records Freese's parts note-for-note)

I went and watched that part of the Slash MTV interview with headphones, and I realise there is a mistake in the transcript.

Slash says: "we saw this list, 'Guns N' Roses samples'" So I think he means it along the lines of Bob Clearmountain's notepad that he mentions in his book.

[MaskingApathy]

20 minutes ago, axlvai said:

That would be great to hear man!!! A question who almost every fan has made... how UYI would sound with Adler.... wow.

No because it's not Steven playing the drums, it's still Matt. Just the timbre of the drums would be different.

[UsedYourIllusion]

56 minutes ago, Creed said:

 

But in all defense: UYI is perfectly mixed. 

My left ear has a bone to pick with that statement; turn Izzy up! 

[Gordon Comstock]

2 hours ago, soon said:

Axl has that same jacket! HOB 2001

 

Maybe Axl's jacket ended up "in storage".

 

[axlvai]

2 hours ago, Creed said:

As far as i understood Bob only talked about a 5.1. release, but it was just talk. There are no 5.1. recordings.

 

2 hours ago, MaskingApathy said:

No because it's not Steven playing the drums, it's still Matt. Just the timbre of the drums would be different.

Thanks for the clarification!!!!!

But it can be mixed 5.1 with the existing tapes. Thats good news.

Edited April 10, 2020 by axlvai

[RussTCB]

To be honest, I'd love to hear alt mixes of the UYI stuff just to have something "new" to listen to. 

[Tom2112]

7 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

It's funny how it is only Guns N' Roses who seem to have a problem with these incredibly respected production people, Ezrin and so forth. Bob Clearmountain worked on Tattoo You: enough said! 

End of the day lot of bands have had similar problems working with big name producers.

If you're idea on your head doesn't match what the big producer says m, and what they are doing isn't something you like then you have bo choice but to reshuffle. It's just like getting a new member in the band, you love what they did in their old band but when you work with them you find out they have some annoying quirks or they don't gel with the bands style.... you eventually have to make a change.

[Ant]

3 hours ago, axlvai said:

I want to hear that 5.1 Q-Sound shit. Maybe too futurist in that time... but very approchable in this decade. I had some gnr Q-Sound demos and sounds like shit, maybe was the transfer. I dont really know.

 

Should track down the 5.1 from the AFD Super Deluxe if you haven’t.... I bet it’s better than whatever the Q-sound thing ended up being.  Hopefully UYI gets a similar anniversary treatment. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ant

[kever20]

10 hours ago, Mendez said:

IIRC the Q Sound mixes are around in a stereo format, but they sound like low fidelity shit; possibly the transfer is the culprit? Assuming they are the same mixes that Clearmountain did

 

I have them only for the purpose of having them (at least they were labeled as q sound versions)

That's what I was thinking, as I have those too.

[Voodoochild]

4 hours ago, soon said:

I never picked up on the idea that Clearmount was using "Guns N Roses samples" for Matts drums.

So, that would be samples of Stevens drumming.

 

4 hours ago, MaskingApathy said:

No because it's not Steven playing the drums, it's still Matt. Just the timbre of the drums would be different.

Yeah. It would be Matt's drums sampled.

Basically, it's not as bad as you may think. It's a record technique to make the drums sounding fuller. Because you can't apply reverb to just one part of the drumset (because the other stuff would bleed in the mic), the engineer gets just one dry record of the kick and/or the snare. Then, he applies the reverb individually, so he can just paste on top of the actual performance. It's like overdubbing the drumming with copy & paste sounds of individual parts of the drumkit to achieve that huge sound. 

That's what Andy Wallace used in Nirvana's Nevermind, which was also released in 1991. And remember, Wallace actually worked on the 2006 CD demos (the Antiquiet leaks) and some of his work was actually used in the released album, but I really don't remember what exactly.

You can watch a far better explanation in this video:

 

[Sydney Fan]

10 hours ago, Blackstar said:

I think those were earlier rough mixes. Not Bill Price's.

No, that was earlier, at around the same time Civil War was recorded (a little later).

So i wonder if they were from clink or bob?.

[Sydney Fan]

9 hours ago, axlvai said:

I want to hear that 5.1 Q-Sound shit. Maybe too futurist in that time... but very approchable in this decade. I had some gnr Q-Sound demos and sounds like shit, maybe was the transfer. I dont really know.

 

Surprised axl didnt experiment with this with the CD intentions recordings.

[Blackstar]

2 minutes ago, Sydney Fan said:

So i wonder if they were from clink or bob?.

I would say Clink and the band. It was too early for Bob Clearmountain to have been involved, as the album hadn't been recorded yet.

[Sydney Fan]

These posts are making me think of when I was at home yrsterday watching on youtube metallicas a year and a half in the life of and after seeing lars tell bob rock how certain instruments should sound and bob arguing with him and thankfully lars trusting in bobs approach. Makes me wonder how much of a pain in the ass axl would have been.

4 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

I would say Clink and the band. It was too early for Bob Clearmountain to have been involved, as the album hadn't been recorded yet.

Interesting then  why they didnt ask clink to do the final mixing instead of bill. Also if slash likes the clink mixes because as slash says, the songs sound powerful, what further mixing changes bill price did.

[eggers]

So that old boot going around with the Qsound mixes are Bob’s mixes?

[yumbeen]

On 9/4/2020 at 11:42 PM, MaskingApathy said:

Wait wait wait wait wait, you're telling me that Tom Zutaut, who signed Motley Crue, GnR, and others, is now a used car salesman?!

Yes, and he is right about Honda Civic JAJA

[yumbeen]

On 10/4/2020 at 10:08 AM, axlvai said:

I want to hear that 5.1 Q-Sound shit. Maybe too futurist in that time... but very approchable in this decade. I had some gnr Q-Sound demos and sounds like shit, maybe was the transfer. I dont really know.

 

I think there's a bootlegs with Q sound mixes, 2 cds

[MYWIFEMYLIFE]

I fully trust Axl on production stuff, he knows his shit.

[Blackstar]

On 4/10/2020 at 4:37 PM, UsedYourIllusion said:

Does that suggest that the compilation that Civil War is on might have a different mix than UYI II? 

Bumping the thread, because I just noticed Slash had answered this in 1992:

Q: "Civil War" sounds much improved on Illusion II.

Slash: It's the same version, just mixed better. It was ironic in the timing when it came out. When we recorded that, it wasn't in our normal studio. I didn't have a normal amp. It was one of those things where we had to do it because we were doing it for a benefit album, and it was a rush thing. The song was great, but Steven couldn't play. It took two days just to get the drums. That's out of the norm for us. I had to use a rented amp, and I wasn't particularly happy with the sound. Then Clink tried to mix it in a couple of different studios. I wasn't happy with the mix, and we usually don't use Clink to mix. We sat in on the mix, but I couldn't get it right. I didn't like the studio. When it came time to use it for our album, we had it mixed by Bill Price, who is awesome. He did the Pistols, the Pretenders, the Nymphs. There's a classic story that goes with the mixing. We couldn't work with Thompson-Barbiero, who were the two guys who mixed Appetite. At first, we chose not to work with them, and then by making that decision, they took on another gig, and we didn't have anybody to mix it. Then we asked them to do it and they couldn't, because they were working on Tesla. Being that we don't know that much about mixing and because we were so close to the music, we got to a point where we didn't even know what it was supposed to sound like anymore. Bill Price is somebody that we originally wanted to produce the album, in the early days, because he'd done the Pistols and the Pretenders. We really liked the sonics on those records. So we got in touch with him and he came out, and he brought a whole new life to the album. He has a great overall idea of what separation's all about, as far as instruments go, especially because there were so many things going on in some songs. He was great to work with, and he has great ears, so it was a real relief, 'cause I thought the album was destroyed. The hiring of Bill Price is one of the reasons this album took so long to get out. And then, of course, because we're so brilliant, we decided to start touring before the album was even mixed. Which wasn't our fault. It was more the fault of our old manager, because he booked these gigs and we hadn't finished the record yet.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t518-1992-04-dd-guitar-for-the-practising-musician-slash-duff

(Interestingly, Slash didn't mention Bob Clearmountain at all in this interview).

[Blackstar]

I also edited the title of the thread adding a question mark, because it's not completely clear if the Q Sound Clearmountain mixes are not the same as the Q Sound mixes that have been around.

[axlvai]

1 hour ago, Blackstar said:

I also edited the title of the thread adding a question mark, because it's not completely clear if the Q Sound Clearmountain mixes are not the same as the Q Sound mixes that have been around.

Idk why im happy for this information.

[Ant]

would they really release 21 songs w/ alt mixing

could we really get it

i don’t want to get hurt 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Ant

[UsedYourIllusion]

6 hours ago, Blackstar said:

Bumping the thread, because I just noticed Slash had answered this in 1992:

Q: "Civil War" sounds much improved on Illusion II.

Slash: It's the same version, just mixed better. It was ironic in the timing when it came out. When we recorded that, it wasn't in our normal studio. I didn't have a normal amp. It was one of those things where we had to do it because we were doing it for a benefit album, and it was a rush thing. The song was great, but Steven couldn't play. It took two days just to get the drums. That's out of the norm for us. I had to use a rented amp, and I wasn't particularly happy with the sound. Then Clink tried to mix it in a couple of different studios. I wasn't happy with the mix, and we usually don't use Clink to mix. We sat in on the mix, but I couldn't get it right. I didn't like the studio. When it came time to use it for our album, we had it mixed by Bill Price, who is awesome. He did the Pistols, the Pretenders, the Nymphs. There's a classic story that goes with the mixing. We couldn't work with Thompson-Barbiero, who were the two guys who mixed Appetite. At first, we chose not to work with them, and then by making that decision, they took on another gig, and we didn't have anybody to mix it. Then we asked them to do it and they couldn't, because they were working on Tesla. Being that we don't know that much about mixing and because we were so close to the music, we got to a point where we didn't even know what it was supposed to sound like anymore. Bill Price is somebody that we originally wanted to produce the album, in the early days, because he'd done the Pistols and the Pretenders. We really liked the sonics on those records. So we got in touch with him and he came out, and he brought a whole new life to the album. He has a great overall idea of what separation's all about, as far as instruments go, especially because there were so many things going on in some songs. He was great to work with, and he has great ears, so it was a real relief, 'cause I thought the album was destroyed. The hiring of Bill Price is one of the reasons this album took so long to get out. And then, of course, because we're so brilliant, we decided to start touring before the album was even mixed. Which wasn't our fault. It was more the fault of our old manager, because he booked these gigs and we hadn't finished the record yet.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t518-1992-04-dd-guitar-for-the-practising-musician-slash-duff

(Interestingly, Slash didn't mention Bob Clearmountain at all in this interview).

So it seems that it was a comedy of errors that lead to the mix we have now, and how Bill got involved. Surprising that the band chose to not go with Thompson-Barbiero again; say what you want about the drums and the reverb-- Appetite sounds great; I think Appetite sounds much better than the Illusion records. Everything has this soft, hazy sort of sound on the illusions (to me at least). Vs. Appetite and the Spaghetti Incident sound mean, dirty and sharp like a razor. It's hard to describe I guess. Don't Cry sort of exemplifies it, listening to the tone of the live versions and how aged the studio version sounds--not a big fan. Seems to be lacking grit, punch, and sharpness to me. I love all the playing on the record, just not the mix and overproduction. It seems like the band clashed and didn't have a good vision for what they wanted with the records