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Riddle me this (live or playback?)


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"9 to 5" has come up on the playlist for a band I'm depping/subbing for in two weeks. Although I "kinda know it", I wanted to give it a critical listen to nail the horn parts. As usual, I search for original, live versions, covers etc. as each one could give me a slightly different insight.

 

I came across this clip from the Kelly Clarkson show:

 

It starts out as a pre-recorded segment of Kelly lip-synching to the first verse and chorus. Cut to the studio and a vamp while Kelly is introduced and appears to sing the rest of the song, with a "real-life" band. The vamp seems to be a cued thing, rather than being a fixed length?

 

So what's going on? Is it a cross-fade from playback to live over the cut, with audience applause to help mask the join?

 

Cheers, Mike.

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The vamp seems to be a cued thing, rather than being a fixed length?

 

So what's going on? Is it a cross-fade from playback to live over the cut, with audience applause to help mask the join?

Yup, sounds like a cross-fade. It sounds like the live band (actually, initially, nothing except the bass and drums) comes in at 1:19. It's seems like almost a hard cut between the two sections... the only thing that overlaps between the two is the faded out backing vocals singing "ooh" -- there's nothing else joining the two pieces. And you're right, the exact length of the vamp was almost certainly cued on the fly, because the measure that brings her in is only 7 beats. So the vamp is 4 bars of 8 and 1 bar of 7... a very unlikely way to plan or pre-record it! That said, I think the band was playing to a click that had been sync'd up with the video, and that had additional tracks available to "fly in" once KC started singing, because as the song goes on, we hear horns and backing singers. Either that or they were overdubbed later.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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