Adding crowd noise (applause, hoots, etc.) to live recorded demos -- ethical or not?

[AUSSIEKEYS]

dp2 said

Besides, if a "club owner or agent" liked what he or she heard in your demo, and if he or she still had any unanswered questions, then the owner/agent could have you (and your band) to audition in person.

 

 

hi dp2

 

Audition?

 

I always find that an interesting option that seems to be a common thing in America....In my 28 years of performing [in australia] I have never had an agent or bar ask for an audition.

 

I have often heard of it happen in America...is this a common accepted thing in America....

 

i think Aussies would say ahhhh take it or leave it....you either want us or you dont.

 

although perhaps newbies would do it...as I remember lots of new bands playing for nothing.

 

I havent even heard of wedding companies having audition days which seems to be an accepted thing with american wedding places.

[AUSSIEKEYS]

It would be different if you had played to crickets,

--Dave [/QB]

yes thats it.....go agaimst the flow

 

add the crickets not the applause

 

..it might be the edge over everyone else they are looking for.

[Tusker]

I'm with Marino. It depends how it is done. I don't have a problem with sweetening. It's done everywhere, to everything. Peter Gabriel added synth sweetening to his live album back in the dark ages of the 1980s. Why? Because he could. And it sounded better.

 

We live in a post-modern age. Art is aware of it's artifice. Or it should be. Don't sweat it. Just do it cleverly.

 

Jerry

[Mr. Nightime]

Not too long ago we brought the guitar player's Roland digital multi-track recorder to a gig, and recorded the whole night. The guitar player mixed it down to where it sounded good, then he added fake crowd noises, just for fun. Personally, I would have liked it better if he'd left the crowd noises out. Distracted from the music, and made it sound contrived. It was bad enough where he only gave copies to the band members.

 

On the other hand, if the crowd was with you when the recording was made, I see no problem sweetening the noise up a bit to better convey the fell of the night.

[stepay]

Well, now it's clear that adding a little something seems fine with most of you.

 

You all may have swayed me. If I think it fits, I may add some crowd noise. I won't over do it though.

 

I also agree with the notion that 9 songs is too many. In the past, we've given out demos with 5 full-length songs on them, and we've gotten lots of gigs based on those, but our sound is a bit different than those old demos. Maybe I'll put 5-6 full-length songs on there instead of 9 and then make one track that has 30-second snippets of all 9 songs. I'd then make that clear on the CD that that's what's going on. Hmm. Sounds like a good idea.

 

As far as auditioning goes, we only did that once ever, and it was a place we really wanted to get into. Also, it was early on in the band's life. We've got enough gigs now to choose from that we wouldn't audition unless it were Carnegie Hall or something. If a local place wanted us to audition, we'd say no.

 

Thanks for all the responses.

[Tony Bennett]

If it sounds good do it, if it doesnt sound good dont. I had a person get after me for using guest musicians on my cd. Claimed it was a deception as we wouldnt sound the same live. Now Im using my keyboard to record woodwind and string sounds, a deception again I guess as Yo-Yo Mah and Doc Severinsen havent taken up residence in my basement. I like live recordings, if you can make it sound legit, deceive away.

[ProfD]

In general, use the tools if you can live with the results.

 

However, I have found that less is always more especially in music. The audience (crowd or individual) will catch the feeling if it is there regardless of technical issues.

 

After all, didn't some of us grow up on 78s, 33.3s, 45s, 8 track and cassettes?

 

In terms of getting gigs, a club owner normally does not have time to listen to a whole song.

 

The 30 second snippets of the strongest parts of the tunes should suffice. Either s/he gets the vibe of the band or not.

 

An ethics conversation these days is very difficult. Use your better judgment and you will be fine.

[dgrennan]

I think it's no different than triggering a sample of a horn player, or playing a string part, and listeners of the recording might think you have a horn player and string section.

 

Are we fooling the listeners with our samplers and romplers?

[ProfD]

Originally posted by dgrennan:

Are we fooling the listeners with our samplers and romplers?

Not really. They don't care as long as it sounds good to them.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Tusker:

I'm with Marino. It depends how it is done. I don't have a problem with sweetening. It's done everywhere, to everything. Peter Gabriel added synth sweetening to his live album back in the dark ages of the 1980s. Why? Because he could. And it sounded better.

 

We live in a post-modern age. Art is aware of it's artifice. Or it should be. Don't sweat it. Just do it cleverly.

 

Jerry

Exactly. Gabriel tweaked "Plays Live" quite a bit, per his own admission in the liner notes.

As ReallyABassPlayer noted, Elton John did something similar to B&TJ to make it sound live.

Why? Why not?

 

In any case, if the performance is mediocre and you put a Wembley sized cheering section on the end of your tracks, even Helen Keller would notice.

[dp2]

I haven't had to audition too often, but I've been through a few of them. I don't mind them; I figure that I wouldn't have been invited to audition if the agent weren't interested in me.

 

More often than not, I think agents that tend to want groups to audition are trying to do a few things: 1) meet you, 2) check out your vibe and see if it will mesh with the vibe of the venue, 3) see how well you work with others, and 4) see if you actually show up on time ready to perform. In every case an agent has asked me to audition, he or she has always had something else in mind on the backend.

[MightyTonewheel]

Having been involved in a number of post audio projects, I can verify that audio sweetening is the norm. The only exception is recordings in jazz clubs, where sometimes producers want to keep an intimate feel. I'm sympathetic to the idea behind sweetening: I've been to lots of live gigs where the room energy didn't translate to tape at all.

 

Then there's the other extreme, where a producer once asked me to copy-and-paste crowd chanting throughout a recording. Even more troubling is that the chanting was recorded during the performance of the previous band. Nice, huh? (I dryly replied that the chanting may be considered intellectual property owned by the previous band.)

 

This isn't much different than other dilemmas technology routinely places us all in. A few weeks ago, I ran into a bass player that I've played with a dozen times or so, through overdubs, but had never actually met. Is that deceptive, considering that everyone that bought those CDs probably assumed we all played the songs together?

[dp2]

I agree with MightyTonewheel. In fact, sweetening is also done during live gigs--especially in Pop music.

 

I don't think adding the bass part via overdubs is an issue. After all, most recordings get recorded in separate parts (on individual tracks) at different times (and sometimes different locations). Read the CD notes that come with various CDs. They typically will mention whether various parts were recorded together or not.

[DIALTWISTER]

If I hear a recording and the crowd is going WILD, yelling, cheering BUT I think the music sucks...

 

you get my point?

 

The only person you will be fooling are people who don't make thier own choices, followers...

 

Who knows... maybe years from now you will listen to the recordings and think... wow I was really popular back then!

[Byrdman]

Well, I stand by what I said. If you advertise it as a live recording, I think you should not add outside crowd noise, or else you should disclaim it. From an ethical point of view, I don't think there's a problem if you tell people you did that.

 

However from a sound point of view, there's a problem if you can hear both the added crowd and the actual crowd through the stage mics and the two obviously don't match up. This means covering up every real crowd noise with a fake crowd noise.

 

I think the whole thing will be hard to pull off technically. Plus I don't think having the crowd only coming through on stage mics makes a bad artistic statement. Its the way you often hear the crowd on "official bootlegs" where the feed has been taken direct from the FOH mix.

[jackpine]

OK... if you do a live recording and the bass comes through like crap and you reach for the EQ and turn it up are you putting in something that wasn't there?. He has clearly said the crowd was there and enthusiastic. What is the big deal?????

[Dave Horne]

This discussion is much like the 'sequencers replacing live musicians thread'.

 

If you use 'it', you can justify it as a tool with the 'what's the harm' attitude. If you don't use it, your reasons are varied - taste or simple ethics.

 

I think the voting is pretty much along party lines. The red states use 'it' and the blues states don't.

[dp2]

What about the purple states?

 

Why not record it both ways (with and without the added crowd noise) and see which one sounds better?

[Paul Clancy]

I think when done subtly it can add a nice effect to demos and things but i wouldnt take it too seriously.

 

Heres a friend of mine's band doing paint it black with a kindov MTV unplugged style audience...I think its great!

 

http://www.voodoomusic.org/paintitblack.mp3

[stepay]

Man this thread is still going?

 

Fortunately there are some "real" crowd yells and whilstles and hoots etc. that can be heard. Just as a test, I added a crowd cheer at the end of Riders On The Storm, and it sounds perfect. I could easily use it and no one would be the wiser. I probably don't need to though, so maybe I won't add the noise. They stand on their own pretty well. I've been thinking more about whether the noise really adds much, and I'm not too sure. I do think though that I've come to decide it's not a big deal if I do add the noise.

[Phred]

I have a marginally off topic story to tell, and will try to bridge it back to the current topic:

 

My previous band was a Jamband (Phish, Greatful Dead type of band) with a pretty good following. Constantly played 10min long songs. But our fan base could and would drink very heavily - and always stay to the end of the show.

 

After a show at a club that we have never played before I went to the guy who books the band and asked about our performance, and if we could book another gig. He said, "Frankly, you guys suck. I can't believe that anyone likes your music. But you certainly brought the crowd, and your friends can DRINK! Come back anytime". He actually offered us a house gig.

 

Al that to say that the club owner is likely more interested in the crowd noise in your recording than in the music. Sure he/she would like to know if you play music suitable to the establishment, but would rather know how the crowd liked it. Maybe you could put this info on the liner notes:

 

Number of People in the crowd:

avg bar tab:

% of crowd still there after 12:30:

[ITGITC]

Originally posted by Phred:

Al that to say that the club owner is likely more interested in the crowd noise in your recording than in the music. Sure he/she would like to know if you play music suitable to the establishment, but would rather know how the crowd liked it. Maybe you could put this info on the liner notes:

 

Number of People in the crowd:

avg bar tab:

% of crowd still there after 12:30:

I was a little skeptical when first reading your post. But the very end makes sense.

 

If Steve (Stepay) can show the decision maker that he has a good following, that they like to drink, and that they stick around, then this will certainly get his attention.

 

In other words, in the eyes of the bar owner/manager/decision maker, he wants to sell drinks - that's it. He doesn't care if you play Disco/Polka tunes all night as long as he's making money.

 

So if you can show him that in the past ten gigs you've played you've brought along a sizeable audience - especially an audience that likes to drink top-shelf liquor... and stay until closing - you're in.

 

He'll hire you even quicker if you can convince him that after the show a limosine/bus will come and take them all away ("You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.") so he's not responsible for drunks on the road.

 

And don't think this doesn't happen.

 

My band (The Refried Beans) played a gig for a (very profitable) real estate agency down at Wrightsville beach last year. The owner of the company was concerned about them driving home intoxicated, so she hired a fleet of limousines to take every single one of them home...

 

Great party by the way - until Millard dressed up as Santa Claus, had a little too much to drink and pulled down his trousers to reveal his Christmas shorts.

 

Way to go, Phred. I think you nailed it.

[Phred]

About half way through writing that I forgot what I was doing...