Forever
Written by Brian May
Recording information by Philipp (PraxisNothaft@t-online.de)
Recorded in early 1986 at the Townhouse Studios, London.
Released in May 1986 on the Cd-version of the album A Kind Of Magic.
General:
A wonderful gift for those who already like "Who Wants To Live Forever?".
Brian creates an intense atmosphere with this simple, but moving instrumental.
While the other members took a break, work-aholic Brian May stayed in the studio (with David Richards) and recorded this track.
Piano:
No question, this is typically Brian´s piano-style. This was the first track he recorded and there´s no synchronizing. He used the sustain pedal a lot and a nice hall reverb was added. As it is recorded with mics, you can hear some background noises, when you listen carefully with karaoke-trick.
The piano-signals seem to be placed more right than left in the stereo-panorama.
Keyboards:
I´m not a fortune-teller, but I´ll try to tell something about the stuff Brian used here. I suppose it was a YAMAHA DX7. Brian definitely used this keyboard for synth-strings around this time... but of course I cannot tell you, if he used it exactly on this track... A fact is, that the YAMAHA DX7 was very suitable to create a good string-sound (in 1986). The sound could be best described as Strings 2 or
Synth-Strings 1, to say it with modern General Midi phrases.
The keyboard went directly into the desk. There were two tracks recorded:
One more left, the other one more right. This makes a fat sound.
On some places, the sounds are slowly fading in or they´re suddenly going into the background.
By the way:
This instrumental is also used in the Theatre-Domain of Queen The Eye.
Take a look at Brian, playing synth-strings at Wembley 86´ (Who Wants To Live Forever). This song was recorded digitally... and somebody played synthesizer...