The youtube 'outings' for miming - why do clever people not realise how dangerous it is?

  • Thread starter Thread starter rob aylestone
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rob aylestone

rob aylestone

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Have you seen how quick people are getting jumped on for miming - I don't say lip-syncing. Ken Tamplin is currently being executed and his attempt to do the Streisand approach has failed big time. People like Fil - Wings of Pegasus and lots of others are applying music technology skills to validate the miming, and it seems so many very big names routinely do it.

I'm not going into the morals and ethics, but the technology.

We take a live performance and we can take the stems and fix mistakes - the trumpet player blasts screaming F sharp instead of an F. A few seconds in Cubase or your favourite DAW and it is fixed. We can take those strangled high notes and overdub them - after all, we've all got older, and while missing the note in front of a few hundred/thousand fans may be forgiven, do you want it replayed millions of times and talked about. The messed up guitar solo - a huge list of common cock-ups.

We can fix them, but it seems as technologists, we're fixing them really poorly. The test, as seen on youtube is isolating the vocal (or other source) then overlaying it on a fan video shot at a different place on a different date. If they line up, the secret is blown. What I don't get is that you can so easily make waveforms NOT fit. You do not have to snap the tuning to exactly C, you could move it to a little high and slowly drift down, and you can so easily stretch and warp the timing, just modifying the timing forward in back, and putting in little extended gaps. It would be so easy to make a 'perfect' vocal that is different. Easy in the studio, but if you are using a live stem, you could set up a template that would make sure lining up two waveforms just didn't work, and apply this to the tracks you are using before the show. A few cents here or there and subtle tempo flow. The technology could fool Wings of Pegasus's method so easily.

My question is that if it's possible, 'names' must be stupid to not do this. We can all spot bad miming, so when some people do it so well, why don't we also make the technology invisible.
I totally get that you want your youtube video to look good and sound immaculate - but if you cheat, cheat properly. Once your cheat is out there, like Ken Tamplin's is - it is too late. They guys is a studio whizz, so doing a poor re-record is really his fault. Deleting and then re-editing even more stupid as deleted videos are always findable somewhere.

I guess I'm saying that if you are going to cheat, make sure you cheat properly!
 
I think part of the problem is that the "show" has become so much more important than the music is so many cases. Every show has to have a huge stage, acrobatics, 2 dozen dancers, fireworks and lasers, a half dozen costume changes, and maybe a few live musicians to make it a concert. Everything becomes a SuperBowl extravaganza. In the scheme of things, throwing an autotune box in the vocal chain isn't a big deal, at least not for anyone who comes for the show.

It may be something that's essential if your singer is spinning around, dancing up and down steps, flying from a trapeze and doing cartwheels over other dancers. I can only imagine how breathless I would be doing that. I have a difficult enough time singing while standing at a microphone on a stand!

But my preference would be do get rid of all the extravagance and concentrate on the songs. One of my favorite concerts was the Moody Blues. They walked on stage to cheers, told everyone to sit back, relax, and enjoy a night of music. They played for 2 hours, no dancing, so fireworks, just music by talented musicians. Recent concerts I've attended were Gov't Mule, Tedeschi Trucks, Kansas, and The Happy Together oldies tour at the state fair. The best part that there was no vocal fixing. That was obvious when one of the acts started singing.... the number of off key notes was painful for anyone who was really listening. If you just there to sing along with the songs of your younger days, then you probably didn't care. Other groups really sounded good, they were tight and clearly good singers.

Sometimes it really goes wrong... Ashley Simpson's debacle on Saturday Night Live is a classic case. But if you're on a stage in a stadium, nobody can really see you lips clearly enough to notice that you're not in perfect sync with the PA system.

As for Youtube videos, etc., I don't see a big deal unless the person is specifically saying it's a live take. Videos have been lip synced for decades. Who hasn't seen old videos of groups from the 60 playing their hit song and the microphones and guitars aren't plugged in (there weren't wireless setups in 1966). I don't really understand the big controversy over Ken Tamplin, and honestly don't need to go down that rabbit hole. It's become a fact of life that things are going to be edited, polished and fixed up to make things "perfect".
 
OK I'm not in the loop re:Tamplin here but I know what you're talking about. I dislike the whole polishing process -- it used to be you couldn't polish a turd but now you can. Coincidentally, I did something this morning where I listened to a few mainstream pop songs online and then watched the live versions and a few things pop through the cracks even in the pro concert videos that are making me believe there's no way that the big names in pop can sing at all in the studio. Ed Sheeran can sing in an acoustic setting I know, and maybe a couple others, but damn it's so fake. Some of it is probably AI vocals as well -- how can you tell, it's all so over-processed and sound exactly like a Barbie doll looks.

As you know I did a cover of Dreams this past year, and I did have to work some very primitive wizardry (free software wielded by a first-timer) with my iffy lead vocals. I can sing, just not well in that range. Now I made the video and it will be out in under a week, not a big name so who cares but regardless you won't catch me tricking my listeners, who I know to be 95% musicians (or music-aware) anyway.

Mainstream music is in a sad place IMO, as are all forms of modern "entertainment". It's up to us to not be mainstream!
 
Tamplin is getting raked over the coals mainly because he is a youtube vocal coach.
 
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