OT: Beyonce lip synch or not

[PinkFloydDudi]

I hate the fact that for several decades now, canned performances are expected under certain circumstances and have been accepted by the audience.

 

Professional singer(s) and musicians should be able to get on stage and perform live without a net or Memorex.

 

Thank you.

 

Sorry but I find lip-syncing absolutely pathetic. There are tons of professionals out there who can sing just fine through wind, fire, and rain...don't need these hacks that have to rely on autotuned vocals in order to sound good.

 

There is a "party band" in our area that mostly does "instrumental lip-syncing" in the fact that most of the sound you hear out front is a pre-recorded sequence. I just don't get how you can feel good or get much enjoyment at all from doing that. To each their own I guess.

 

I'd take a "little less than perfect" person who is singing live over an autotuned pitch-perfect performance any day of the week.

[Dana.]

There is a "party band" in our area that mostly does "instrumental lip-syncing" in the fact that most of the sound you hear out front is a pre-recorded sequence. I just don't get how you can feel good or get much enjoyment at all from doing that.

How much does the gig pay?

[Tonysounds]

Tracks and lip synching are the new "doping".

[Sam Mullins]

 

There is a "party band" in our area that mostly does "instrumental lip-syncing" in the fact that most of the sound you hear out front is a pre-recorded sequence. I just don't get how you can feel good or get much enjoyment at all from doing that. To each their own I guess.

 

 

I went to a Duncan Sheik show a few weeks ago and he had two warm-up acts (a solo female and an alternative rock band from Texas) All three acts shared the following characteristics:

 

A) They had decent original material

B) They could sing and play their instruments with competence

C) They had additional pre-recorded (or sequenced) material at various times during the show.

 

IMO, A and B make C unnecessary. I'm not offended by the additional sweetener and I didn't think in any of these cases that it indicated any incompetency on the part of the artist. But, it was EXTREMELY distracting. It was actually the least distracting with the solo singer since it was more obvious. But when you are watching a five-piece band and all of a sudden you are hearing an extra part, the mind starts to wonder "where is that coming from...which parts are being played and which aren't?" I talked to many musician friends about this and we all have the same reaction...it simply isn't worth it to make sure you have "that part" because the distraction takes the listener out of the moment. I'm guessing this reaction is stronger from musician listeners than with non-musicians.

[Eric Iverson]

I understand the above, but say you needed a violin part on one tune; would you pay a professional violinist to come in and play it? Unless you were making enough money to afford it, it just doesn't seem cost effective.

That's quite another story from using recorded parts to cover up incompetence!

 

How about an acoustic act using a drum machine occasionally?

[ProfD]

I understand the above, but say you needed a violin part on one tune; would you pay a professional violinist to come in and play it?

It depends on how important that violin part is to the tune. Either hire a violinist to play it or have one of the bandmembers play it from a KB.

[PinkFloydDudi]

There is a "party band" in our area that mostly does "instrumental lip-syncing" in the fact that most of the sound you hear out front is a pre-recorded sequence. I just don't get how you can feel good or get much enjoyment at all from doing that.

How much does the gig pay?

 

$20-$100 per person.

 

There is no hidden fact that the people in this band do it for the money. It is mostly made up from a pool of pretty good musicians who need the extra cash to makeup from a lack of playing out in other projects.

[PinkFloydDudi]

...and I didn't think in any of these cases that it indicated any incompetency on the part of the artist.

Sort of disagree there. If they were competent enough to play the songs - why didn't they play all the parts?

 

I understand the above, but say you needed a violin part on one tune; would you pay a professional violinist to come in and play it?

It depends on how important that violin part is to the tune. Either hire a violinist to play it or have one of the bandmembers play it from a KB.

 

Exactly...

[Outkaster]

Is it Skycoasters or Nik?

[PinkFloydDudi]

Is it Skycoasters or Nik?

 

Both do it...but the main offender I'm referring to is Nik. Skycoasters have some backing tracks and sutff, but Nik literally sequences everyone's parts. The main musician during their shows is the guy who runs the sound board.

 

"Oh the bass player is messing up, let me turn down his live rig and turn up the sequenced bass track. Problem solved"

 

I gained access to their "database", and downloaded a few of their sequences. It was pathetic. Literally almost anyone in the band could stop playing and their part would be covered.

 

In many videos I've seen of them, the keyboard player barely plays.

 

A really incredible jazz professor of mine told me he was in Nik for 1 gig...they yelled at him for playing more on top of the sequence (like adding a 7th or 9th to some chords). He quit and said he would never do it again.

 

our sax player also plays with them. They are a bunch of talented musicians that play - but in Nik - their entire show (literally a script that reads "10 second break in between songs" along with a dialoge that they say during that break on the mic)...is completely scripted and sequenced.

[Sam Mullins]

...and I didn't think in any of these cases that it indicated any incompetency on the part of the artist.

Sort of disagree there. If they were competent enough to play the songs - why didn't they play all the parts?

 

 

To take the extreme example: the first act was a solo female with guitar. Let's suppose she recorded song X on her album with bass and drums (in addition to her guitar). She thinks that song X really needs bass and drums and so uses a backing track. I find it distracting and annoying, but I wouldn't say her guitar playing is any less or more competent than it was on the record. I just think her judgement is bad because she doesn't realize that the song will be better presented with a spare arrangement rather than a distracting semi-automated arrangement.

 

Similar logic for bands. My band has done 3 CD's and there are always more guitar and key parts layered than we could cover live. But our solution isn't to put backing tracks to cover the other parts. Since each of those parts was played by the guys in the band, they can obviously play them. They just can't play all of them at the same time.

 

That's what I mean by it not being a competency issue.

 

[Sam Mullins]

I understand the above, but say you needed a violin part on one tune; would you pay a professional violinist to come in and play it? Unless you were making enough money to afford it, it just doesn't seem cost effective.

That's quite another story from using recorded parts to cover up incompetence!

 

How about an acoustic act using a drum machine occasionally?

 

I guess I'm saying "make it work without the violin OR hire a violin player" For me it's not moral issue, it's an aesthetic issue. If you can make a backing track work without it distracting me from YOUR performance...great. Most of the people I see fail miserably at this.

 

But there are exceptions: I can see the occasional use of a drum machine for a solo acoustic act...if it's well done (i.e. it doesn't seem like performer is a slave to a click track...they aren't fighting the natural tempo variation of the song.) A good example is the beginning of Stop Making Sense where David Byrne does Psycho Killer with a "boom box" (I'm sure the actual sound was from the mixing desk.) That worked artistically becuase he made a point of making it obvious...he wasn't trying to fool anyone and it was obvious who was doing what.

 

In summary, if it works then I'm fine with it. But the vast majority of the time it is just distracting to me.

[Outkaster]

Is it Skycoasters or Nik?

 

Both do it...but the main offender I'm referring to is Nik. Skycoasters have some backing tracks and sutff, but Nik literally sequences everyone's parts. The main musician during their shows is the guy who runs the sound board.

 

"Oh the bass player is messing up, let me turn down his live rig and turn up the sequenced bass track. Problem solved"

 

I gained access to their "database", and downloaded a few of their sequences. It was pathetic. Literally almost anyone in the band could stop playing and their part would be covered.

 

In many videos I've seen of them, the keyboard player barely plays.

 

A really incredible jazz professor of mine told me he was in Nik for 1 gig...they yelled at him for playing more on top of the sequence (like adding a 7th or 9th to some chords). He quit and said he would never do it again.

 

our sax player also plays with them. They are a bunch of talented musicians that play - but in Nik - their entire show (literally a script that reads "10 second break in between songs" along with a dialoge that they say during that break on the mic)...is completely scripted and sequenced.

 

I have known a bunch of them for years. 8 years ago they were selling O1WR's over at Sound Source that they used to use. They have a reputation of sequencing stuff. Everyone knows it but years ago they were making shitloads of money but paying members 50 dollars a gig.

[David Loving]

I heard on the news last night that the band was "instrument sync-ing," too. No time to rehearse; too cold.

 

Pretty much every US orchestra does the anthem on opening night each season, it's standard etiquette. In 30 years of doing this with dozens of orchestras, I can't recall one time that we actually practiced it.

 

The news bit pointed out that the Marine Band had wanted to rehearse with the singer but could not because of time problems. I'm sure they knew how to play the National Anthem, but not while Beyonce was singing along.

[David Loving]

There is a "party band" in our area that mostly does "instrumental lip-syncing" in the fact that most of the sound you hear out front is a pre-recorded sequence. I just don't get how you can feel good or get much enjoyment at all from doing that.

How much does the gig pay?

 

+1

[Tonysounds]

Tracks and lip synching are the new "doping"...I mean performance enhancing drugs.

 

[SHaka40]

Sorry but I find lip-syncing absolutely pathetic. There are tons of professionals out there who can sing just fine through wind, fire, and rain...don't need these hacks that have to rely on autotuned vocals in order to sound good.

I have kind of mixed feelings about this. I mean this lip-syncing stuff in nothing new, especially when the venue is some huge stadium or outdoor event that introduces a bunch of inherent variables. I know that Whitney Houston's superbowl version of the anthem, considered by many to be the definitive modern performance of the song, was pre-recorded. Also, Aretha Franklin pre-recorded the anthem when she sung it for an NBA Finals game in the mid 2000s. I'm not saying that this makes it ok, but my point is that none of these ladies, Beyonce included, are the least bit incompetent as vocalists.

 

I'd take a "little less than perfect" person who is singing live over an autotuned pitch-perfect performance any day of the week.

I would too without a doubt, but I'm afraid we're in the minority nowadays. With the way social media and the 24-hour news cycle is, everybody has an opinion and, for better or worse, everybody feels the need to broadcast that opinion to the world (like we are right now). So I could see how from the performer's perspective, this hyper-critical, 140-characters-or-less culture (not to mention pressure from label execs and the like) could create the sense that a "little less than perfect" is no longer an option. I mean, if the Beyonce story hadn't blown up, I'd bet somebody would have started a thread about how (insert singer here) was flat or (insert musician here) didn't groove quite right--you know, like we do right after every single Grammy Awards broadcast or superbowl halftime show . I'm not saying any of this is an excuse for lip-syncing. For every example like the aformentioned ladies, there's probably a hundred Milli Vanillis, who really are incompetent. But I think the issue is a little more complex than it seems on the surface.

[Theo Verelst]

For the sort of pro musicians from the past there used to be a big difference on TV or live shows between the recorded sound, with all the more and less known processing going on, and the more direct "Live" sound which in a way is a more honest rendition of the instruments and the voices. Going over unplugged, the live sounds have become more processed in not-so-great ways in the recent past, to the extremes of PA mixers playing delay lines with samples, extreme echo reduction with big effects on the sound, and of course certain people taking it that pressing some sample knobs and molesting faders is a way to perform something.

 

Since "Waterloo" at the Eurovision (for Europeans, I guess US people would more easily relate to rock and roll "sound" on the early TV), the BBCs Top of the Pops discussions on "live" performances (end 70s), the live sound could be more and more adapted by more effective and reliable amplification and more powerful effect equipment, but somehow in the 90s I think a lot of the knowledge on how to get a good live sound got sidetracked.

 

The discussion could include IMO, if it is possible to get a greeaaat live sound without being Supertramp, or using over 20 trucks of equipment like the Stones and such, which compares to the Neumann and the SSL and all the accurate and careful tuning with effects that people do in the studio. Or whether Paul Simon can pick up the guitar and sound great through an average system. At some point when PA people start sampling stuff and the nice (like with a Lexicon) connection between the mics and instruments is completely hopelessly lost because some bozos are more into stupid DSP, and have more faith in the their eventual purpose of "taken over the stage", than that they serve the audience with a great sound. Which even with new technology appears to be reserved for a few only, at the moment.

 

So maybe some artists feel they better "play a good recording" to give the audience some satisfaction of a great sound...

 

[RABid]

I would not want to see Eddie Van Halen faking guitar solos, but if a band is going to use a drum machine and sequencer in the studio I see no problem using it on stage. Way back when Let's Go Crazy and Rocket were on the radio, we were covering them using a drum machine. Soon after I was using a sequencer to program those "secquenced" parts in dance songs. If my little band in the hills of south east Kentucky was doing it 25 years ago I assume other bands have been doing it just as long.

 

One of the worst shows I have seen was the Los Vegas Philharmonic doing a special performance. It was so bad I was wondering if they were all site reading the material for the first time. I would have been happier in my ignorance if they had faked it and used a recording.

[Cygnus64]

One of the worst shows I have seen was the Los Vegas Philharmonic doing a special performance. It was so bad I was wondering if they were all site reading the material for the first time. I would have been happier in my ignorance if they had faked it and used a recording.

 

Amateur band, only recently have they pumped any money into it. It's one of the pitfalls of being isolated, no pro players around (outside of the shows, which employ very few classical-type players these days and those players are busy doing their shows). L.A. is 270 miles from Vegas, so that would mean serious travel $$ and hotels. Since the orchestra only does 4-5 classical shows a year, they have to do most of their recruiting from the area. As a result of that, no notable music schools nearby, no budget for many rehearsals and lousy pay, they can't attract pro level players and that's gonna make for some crappy shows. It's a shame as that area is growing so quickly.

[Dave Bryce]

I was pretty sure within 5 seconds of her starting to perform that she was doing a live double to a prerecorded track. I was actually quite impressed that she was able to double it so closely...but i could clearly hear the double.

 

dB

[Cygnus64]

One thing that needs mentioned: the producers/organizers of these events are often the "culprits". I'm sure a lot of singers went on shows like American Bandstand fully ready to sing, and only when they got there did they find out otherwise. It's just far easier for the producer.

 

Remember when the Terminator went back to stop John Connor's birth? When I invent my time machine, I'm going back to stop the birth of whoever invented autotune. That shiat is pure evil, I'd rather watch someone lip-sync to a real vocal than listen to one second of autotuned crap. Stay off my lawn.

[dta3923]

In an age when many big name acts are using pitch correct software, autotune, and singing along with vocal tracks (vocal assist) in live performance, I don't know why people get surprised or upset when they find out.

[stillplaying]

One thing that needs mentioned: the producers/organizers of these events are often the "culprits".

 

Yes. They've no budget for it and with TV stuff it's sometimes too complicated for them to manage in the space (and time) they have.

 

In the UK I always assume that at least the vocal is live on a show hosted by Jonathan Ross (chatshows with a live band) or the one where Jools Holland draws a salary for being so charismatic and putting guests and the live audience at their ease.

 

I assume everyone else is miming - 'cause they've been told they have to. I don't know about this particular case but - don't make the assumption that it's the performer's choice.

[wmp]

I wouldn't want to "play" the Super Bowl half time or the Presidential Inauguration any more than I'd want that stuff as break time entertainment on one of my gigs.

[Dana.]

I was pretty sure within 5 seconds of her starting to perform that she was doing a live double to a prerecorded track. I was actually quite impressed that she was able to double it so closely...but i could clearly hear the double.

+1

[Cygnus64]

I wouldn't want to "play" the Super Bowl half time or the Presidential Inauguration

 

C'mon, they probably have some bitchin' catering.

[wmp]

I wouldn't want to "play" the Super Bowl half time or the Presidential Inauguration

 

C'mon, they probably have some bitchin' catering.

I'm glad I can do that with my cell phone. Neither event is my kind of party. I don't think they're calling anytime soon anyway.

 

[ProfD]

IMO, "time" is the worst excuse producers use to justify backing tracks. A typical song is less than 4 minutes.

 

The National Anthem is about 2 minutes long. Non-professional singers belt it out at d8mn near every sporting event.

 

The Marine Corp band knows the music. Beyonce knows the lyrics. They didn't need to rehearse it.

 

If the weather permitted these folks to be outside, they could have performed the National Anthem live without a rehearsal, safety net or Memorex.

 

Marian Anderson sang live on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. She didn't need backing tracks, autotune or a major PA system.

 

As a musician, I find this BS of "producing" live performances both insulting and discouraging.

 

Then, we wonder why technology caters to folks incapable of playing an instrument and/or those who cannot sing properly.

 

Look at their f'n role models. Professional singers and musicians reduced to mimes. Get off my lawn.

[zephonic]

I haven't seen the performance in question, but in most cases, it's not pure "lip syncing," but rather real singing accompanied by a pre-recorded double track to help fill out the sound. This is usually the case with these acts where the singer is dancing around and whatnot for the whole show. You simply can't be moving around like they do and project a full tone with your voice. It's a matter of physics. There are probably parts during the show that she sings purely on her own, and parts that are "aided" by a canned performance.

 

Michael Jackson could do all the dance routines and still sing in tune and time. But I guess he was exceptional. Janet could not. You could hear her running out of breath during those dance routines.