Between 1984 until 1991 I had probably spent more time in this room than anywhere else but, when I sat down here in June 2013 to test the speaker system and demonstrate this mixing concept for Queen: The Studio Experience, I didn't anticipate feeling quite so moved. That music… in this room… after all this time - Mother Love, Freddie's final vocal recording. I was working on that session in May 1991 as assistant engineer, and Dave was at the helm with Brian, Roger and John here too. There was one particular day however, not long before we'd started work on Mother Love, that was more significant for me personally. The other band members were not around and Freddie had been in Montreux for a few days preparing to record his vocal on A Winter's Tale. This song had been started that January but the key had been changed, the lyrics since finished, and Freddie was ready to sing. When the day came, Dave was suddenly taken ill, and, when I told Freddie, he just said “you'll have to do it then darling!” He was in the habit of recording vocals in the control room with minimal monitoring and no headphones - it was quite intimate - just Freddie and me - and everyone else banished for the afternoon. He sang three or four takes all the way through, then went back and focused on various parts he felt needed attention - so we had up to five versions of the most “tricky” bits ready to compile. In addition to his lead vocal, Freddie also sang some multi-track harmonies near the end of the song. I noticed he had a remarkably clear mental image of exactly what performance of each lyric was on each track. So, for example, he might ask to drop-in one line on a particular track to replace what he knew was his least favourite without checking it first - he just knew. And all the time, even when struggling to stand with his walking-stick and finding it difficult to reach notes he thought he should have made easily… he was still incredibly funny and upbeat. That is how I came to spend a day alone in the studio with Freddie recording one of his last vocals. Jim told me afterwards Freddie was very pleased with how the session had gone, so naturally I was too.