I don't know where to put this thread, but this issue has always nagged me.
Attended a live rock/ classical music and light show concert recently and I have a sneaky suspicion all the sounds were pre-recorded, even though all performers were going thru their musical manoeverings. With fans paying up to $140/ ticket...do they know that the sounds they were hearing were not live music? Isn't it virtually impossible for musicians to always be at the top of their game for a one night stand? Comments anyone?

Cheers, DPW [Everything has limitations...and I hate limitations.]

 

That's cheating.

 

That's entirely possible, I remember a few instances where some pop stars got caught lip syncing with prerecorded music.

However, professional musicians are paid to play their instruments, a musician unable to play well would never have been added to an orchestra in the first place.

A few professional musicians I know always sound prerecorded, I'm convinced they have something embedded in their oboe...

 

I always miss a note so thay know I'm really playing.

 

A lot of "live" music is pre recorded. In some cases the music is recorded and the vocalist sings. In some cases the whole thing is faked. Entertainers claim that the dancing makes them tired so they can't sing all songs. In reality, most pop stars have their voices so heavily processed they sound like crap singing live.

 

I always miss a note so thay know I'm really playing.

There's an old joke: if you miss one note, it's a mistake. If you miss a bunch of notes, it's jazz.

Most of the new singers on shows like American Idol don't actually sing, they yodel. I assume their theory is that if you try to sing every note, eventually you will get the right one?

 

Once upon a time, I was at a concert where they forgot to turn on the amplifiers in the nose bleed section. I was more than a tenth of a second away from the stage. It would be easy to mistake that for faking the performance.

 

If you can't tell the difference between live and recorded does it really matter?

 

A lot of "live" music is pre recorded. In some cases the music is recorded and the vocalist sings. In some cases the whole thing is faked. Entertainers claim that the dancing makes them tired so they can't sing all songs. In reality, most pop stars have their voices so heavily processed they sound like crap singing live.

I hate that, I think if you have a good voice, it's ok. I don't care use it, big deal it doesn't have to be perfect, Jimmy Hendrix, and many others I still enjoy to listen to and it's never boring. But, then their are really good voices, hitting several notes with perfect pitch.

I hate that digital sound crap, be real, it would be a let down if I new how many did it, it might even **** me off and never go see them or listen to them again.

I understand the let down if they lip sink to save their voices from over work, illness etc. Just give me my money back.

 

Willie Nelson sings a few lines ,reach's down and kisses a lady...move along and after

singing a few more lines in real sync....shares some Jack Daniels with the band

and the ladies. He must be a ladies man ,his music is real. The music groups today

gets the crowds all hype up in fancy names. I went to see so and so that all it is

tell and watch the morning T.V shows headline them. Another thing Willie does

is toss cowboy hats into the crowd ,not his someone else's.

 

If you can't tell the difference between live and recorded does it really matter?

Right, I don't want to know. I would be disappointed, I don't want that, what I don't know won't **** me off.

The automatic delete **** is cool

 

1985, live aid, U2 on stage performing a classic. A quick thinking buddy threw in his CD and advanced the track to match the 'live' performance. It matched perfectly.

 

I met a Foley Artist on an airplane. Foley artists make all of the sounds for a movie. He said his goal is not to make sounds realistic, his goal is to make it sound like the audience THINKS it should sound. Maybe the attendees at the concert were complaining that Lady Gaga didn't sound like she did on the iTunes version (the way they think they should sound).

 

Willie Nelson sings a few lines ,reach's down and kisses a lady...move along and after

singing a few more lines in real sync....shares some Jack Daniels with the band

and the ladies. He must be a ladies man ,his music is real. The music groups today

Willie Nelson is an inspiration.... I used to always say, the fact that Willie Nelson can make a living singing and Niel Young can get paid to play the guitar is absolute proof that anything is possible.

 

Personally I don't care for live music.

I want to hear the songs the way they sound on the downloads and on the radio as I know them. That's how I know them and thats how I like their sound.

As far as live country music goes I think I make better sounds most mornings while sitting on the toilet.

 

Willie Nelson is an inspiration.... I used to always say, the fact that Willie Nelson can make a living singing and Niel Young can get paid to play the guitar is absolute proof that anything is possible.

Yes, but song writer/artists like Nelson and Young are usually forgiven for having poor voices. Performing 'heads' with no creative talent like most of the recent string of boy bands and solo female performers are not given that break.

Some current performers definately have artistic talent (e.g. Katie Perry and Lady Gaga) as they with their own 'shows' - lyrics, music, choreography, costumes, sets, ...

As said above, the amount of choreography in a modern show means the singer would be out of breath most of the show and the signing would not be anywhere close to the iTunes version.

A Woodstock-type event would never work again because few performers are Creative artists and and any performance with a Janis Joplin style cracking voice and out-of-breath signing style would be booed off the stage. Especially by the people of appropriate age to sit out in a cornfield for several days without enough food vendors and toilets like Woodstock.

 

Willie Nelson is an inspiration.... I used to always say, the fact that Willie Nelson can make a living singing and Niel Young can get paid to play the guitar is absolute proof that anything is possible.

I never thought I'd hear that...because I worked with musicians that would try to argue me to death if I said such a thing. In my case, switch Bob Dylan for Willie Nelson. I've heard better singing coming out of a drunk in a Chicago subway station at 3 am.

and, I instinctively duck the insults that surely must be headed toward me...

 

As for country music?

I grew up in a place with a spring at the bottom of the hill where we got water, one bucket at a time, and the local radio station had about (6) 45 RPM records. All I could do to avoid the radio was stay away from the house as much as possible. To this day, people that slide up to the right pitch sound like fingernails on a blackboard to me. People that never get to the right pitch have already been discussed.

 

I met a Foley Artist on an airplane. Foley artists make all of the sounds for a movie. He said his goal is not to make sounds realistic, his goal is to make it sound like the audience THINKS it should sound. Maybe the attendees at the concert were complaining that Lady Gaga didn't sound like she did on the iTunes version (the way they think they should sound).

I sat next to an indy film producer on a plane and got a similar tale. I asked her why we still have six-shot revolvers that the person shoots a dozen times with the camera never moving off of them or a ton of other classic errors that are standing jokes. Or why screenwriters and directors are so lazy that they use the same old worn out gimmicks like talking a photo from someone's cell phone while they were riding a rollercoaster and "enhancing" the image enough to make out the VIN number on the dash of the bad guy's car as he's racaing away from the bank six blocks away. Her answer was basically that the audiences, by and large, have certain expectations for what is "real" in a movie and if you go too far against that, even if it is to be truly realistic, that you lose a good portion of the audience who can't buy in to the premise.

I don't know how much I completely buy that line, but it does make a certain amount of sense. Doesn't say particularly good things either about the film industry or the people that watch their crap.

 

But, just imagine how boring a car chase scene would be without squealing tires, even though they're on a DIRT road.