Satellite 15.. The Final Frontier

How good is Satellite 15.. The Final Frontier on a scale of 1-10?

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Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

I'd also say that it's definitely a drum machine - every note on the double kick sounds identical and pretty unnatural.
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You could do that with drum triggers too. Then quantise every note and voila, sounds drum machiney even though it was performed by a real drummer - but what's the point.

I also noticed the skipping in the snare drum at the start of every second bar. It's definitely one of those things that everyone wonders how a producer could have overlooked that! Kinda like clearly audible edit clicks on other albums (Queensryche's American Soldier comes to mind). Weird how careless some things are produced; Mother Of Mercy has a very noticable edit in the final chorus vocals too. But I guess in the case of the drum track the blame goes to Adrian; he could have corrected the drums easily. The skipping probably happened because he forgot to quantise the first four notes after tapping them on his keyboard or so.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

Mega said:
Wait what drum machine
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Satellite 15 was a demo recorded by Adrian, using a drum machine. They never redid it in the studio.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

Adrian wanted to do it, but Steve (of all people) thought it sounded good as a demo.  See the previous page of this thread for details.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

It does sound awesome to me. Kinda disssapointed though. I hope they do it live.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

p4warrior said:
For me it's how the guitars drop out during the first half of the verses and leave Bruce's vocals soaring on his own.  So epic.
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Yea that is what I love about it. It reminds me of Hallowed and The Trooper, similar thing happens in these two, right?


Belenor said:
On a slovak IM forum, I have discovered an interesting note: Could the Satellite 15 title (or even the lyrics) be somehow inspired by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_15 ? It is a satellite which stopped to respond in April, 2010.
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Interesting! But surely the name was decided before April 2010 when that satellite became stranded in space, lost without trace ..............
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

Dominocracy said:
It's not a defect exactly, you're just hearing where the drum-loop starts over. That's actually what clued me in that it was a drum machine rather than Nicko.
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I disagree, it is a defect. If drum loops are done right, they shouldn't have any discontinuity in the sound. And it doesn't sound like anything a talented drummer like Nicko can't play. I am very disappointed in Iron Maiden about this Satellite 15 debacle: either release it right, or don't release it.  :mad:
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

Steve listened to it, and he decided he liked it how it was. Steve's not an idiot, I'm sure he heard it and just didn't care.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

Perhaps we should merge the other discussion about that glitch into this topic - or at least redirect future posts on that issue to this thread?
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

Montségur said:
Does Nicko use double bass drums in the Satellite 15-part? It sound like that.
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It's a drum machine.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

Confirmed in Kevin Shirely's diary...Adrian plays big acoustic chords during the chorus of The Final Frontier.  Takes the song to a whole new level for me.  Very unique for a Maiden opener to have acoustic guitar played through it (not just an acoustic intro, yes I'm thinking of you Moonchild...and not just clean sounding electric guitar, hello Sign of the Cross I'm looking at you).

I wonder if Adrian will play acoustic on TFF live...?
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

'Satellite 15/The Final Frontier' is clearly one of the highlights from the album (wicked guitar solos and great chorus). I'm looking forward to hearing it live next year.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

Satellite 15

This is a nice piece of heavy music. We all know that it's very different to anything Maiden have released, simply because it wasn't done by Maiden. But the thing drags on longer than it should. I think it's again a hasted decision by Harris...i support his decision that Adrian's demo should be a part of the record, but IMHO it isn't good enough in this particular shape. Of course, Adrian made a demo with few riffs and stuff, it's meant as a reference track, or something to build upon. If it remained in this runtime, it should have had at least few more guitar licks, effects, or anything that would spice up the repetitive riffing throughout the song.

The highlight is surely the last part once the double bass starts thundering. But it feels, at least for me, a long time once it gets there.

The Final Frontier

Very good little rocker. The lyrics are somewhat generic, and they are probably one of the least good on the record. But considering that this song was meant to be, as Bruce said, they agreed on album title and title track way before anything for the album was actually written. So they came up with lyrics to fit the title. The sound is quite soft, mid-paced tempo, and there are no palm muted riffs in whole song, which automatically fits this piece into straight rock music. Acoustic guitar layer in chorus goes down nicely, and solos are excellent.

However, in the context of the whole record, this Sat15/TFF combo just doesn't work. Same with El Dorado, another good song. But everything afterwards is so insane and very different that...i don't know, just doesn't fit. Both Sat15/TFF and El Dorado are good tracks, and i'd gladly listen to them on radio, but i've caught myself listening to the album from the track 3 onwards. When i just play the whole CD, i'm thinking like, ok let's wait for this two rockers to pass so the real stuff kicks in.
P.S. I thought of editing Sat 15, shortening a few parts, adding effects here and there to enhance the desperate space feel, etc. And the edited piece should run straight into Isle Of Avalon. Seems like a good idea right now, we'll see how that transition goes once i combine them.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

I was thinking how Satellite 15 will be done live, and came up with the idea that the best way would be to start at 2:27 which then becomes an appropriately short (or not too long) recorded intro for the boys to kick off The Final Frontier.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

For the sake of archiving:

For this album, Satellite 15 .... The Final Frontier was the 7th song that was recorded, on January 19, 2010 (apart from the intro music, which was an older demo by Adrian Smith).
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

I think the intent was to create an other-worldly/confused state of mind/disorientation intro to set the mood for the song Final Frontier.  I think it fits together nicely and sets the mood.  It does a good job of this and is different from the recent Wicker Man/Wildest Dreams/Different World openers.
 
Re: Satellite 15....The Final Frontier

I didn't use to like the intro but it definately grew on me!
 
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