Vocals. How do they do that?

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Best Vocalists of all time:

Ella Fitzgerald and Bobby McFerrin hands down, no contest in my opinion.

The only difference between their live albums and studio albums is the spontinaity in their performance, everything else is spot on carbon copy perfect.
 
Some of you have mentioned autotune like that antares stuff. I would bet that some of you have never even heard the antares unit.

If you did, you would realize that, NO, most artists do not use autotune, but instead do take after take after take. I interviewed new found glory for a radio station and their vocals took almost 3 weeks to do (for 11 short pop songs!).
 
that's just vox, the whole cd took a month and a half to record which is average i guess, I dunno.
 
Stained unplugged was awsome.

Bon Jovi did Wanted Dead or Alive with 2 acoustic guitars better than the studio version.

Sherl Crow is great live,that chick can sing!

My best friend,now deceased,played pro for 50 years,and even at age 65 could take an acoustic guitar and entertain a room full of people all night,and had paying gigs till he died.

Iv'e had the privledge of knowing a truly gifted person,he could play and sing with a bad cold better than I could ever hope to on my best day!

Like Scott said,if your truly talanted it's second nature,but don't kid yourself they all paid their dues.

If your just a hack like me,you hide in your room and hope nobody hears you.
 
The Green Hornet said:
Yo Stopper of Spiderman:

Ever hear a dude named Mel Torme sing? Sinatra called him the greatest singer alive. Alas, he is not around any more.

They called him "The Velvet Fog." I have a three CD compilation of his work . A great talent.
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>>Stained unplugged was awsome.

He can't even sing good on recordings...how could it
be awesome? I can't listen to the album...he's always flat.

The Posies is a band that has incredible singing live. Especially
on their unpluggedgigs where they don't try to beat the shit out of the guitars as opposed to the "plugged" gigs.
 
Let me put it another way,

If you like their music,which I do,unplugged they sounded as good or better than their studio work.

How's that,better for you?
 
How did grammy's performances sound to you?
I think U2 did pretty well.
 
I saw Robert Plant in Dallas during his Now and Zen tour.. Absolutely fantastic.. great showmanship and vocal work.. one of the best shows I have ever seen..

Then I heard a portion of that same show broadcast on the radio the next day, and although it was still quite good, there was something just not right about the way it sounded..

Just like the camera adding ten pounds, some things in a true live performance just will not translate accurately to tape, obviously for many reasons such as the engineering and just the experience of being there. Although this makes most live albums on the market pretty much crap, listening to a live album (assuming that it hasn't been altered much with overdubs) can give you a decent indication of how talented the performer really is.. If the group sounds good on a live album, then they must be really something in person..

For example, I never liked Frampton Comes Alive.. I just didn't get into it from a musical standpoint.. But seeing him a few years later was an entirely different matter altogether.. He truly is one of the best performers, and I was in the front of the club totally grooving on his music..

Sadly, I haven't seen Tool live.. I do however own Opiate and Salival and listen to them frequently.. Maynard definately can hold his own both in and out of the studio..

Cy
 
Every hear Sting live? Hes flawless! Very smooth. Tori Amos pretty darn good as well. Elliot smith sounds just as good live. I saw Smashing Pumpkins. The 1st time was kind of bad, but the 2nd time it was great... Some people it depends on the nights. Now Perry Ferrell is another story. I saw Janes Addiciton on SNL, it was still great to watch, but i never heard so much delay, reverb etc on a voice. Crazy.
 
The Manhattan Transfer sounds as good live as they do in the studio and still tour. They are incredably good and don't have to use special effects or methods.
 
fenix, you don't think that people are using autotune and autotune like products? you actually believe that an artist that sings out of tune will do 100 different takes and somehow magically be in tune?

which artist in this world is going to admit to using autotune?

which artist in this world is going to admit to using a second (better) singer to reinforce their vocals?

which artist is going to admit to being a milli vanilli?

then ask yourself, how many artist are even in control of the mixing/mastering process? when the producer tells the engineer to fix the vocals, what's the artist going to do... say no?
 
Ya' know---if you really listen closely to all of the great singers..few of them actually always sing exactly on pitch on every note. But for the great ones, it's not just pitch; it's a matter of phrasing and emotional content. Now Manhatten Transfer, for example, is usually right on and they have to be because of the way the vocals have to fit together. But if you listen to some of the great soul singers like say.. Marvin Gaye; the pitch can actually fluctuate some and it doesn't really matter because of other qualities in their voice. Frank Sinatra is often held up as the holy grail of singers and I can show you plenty of times when he wasn't really on pitch but once again, it didn't matter becuase he grooved so well. By the way, I've been a piano tuner for 25 years and I know when someones on pitch or not. But we've all heard how a guitarist, for instance, might not be playing anything very special but he grooves so well that it's great because it makes you bounce around in your seat. Look at BBKing. Nothing really technical there but few of us can sound like him even if we learn his licks exactly. The same is true of singers. Phrasing, emotion and grooving can be more important than simply being on pitch if it sounds sterile because of that perfection.
 
I gotta say, after seeing Bryan Adams live, I've gotta put him down as a great live singer. He sounds like he does on CD, and no tricks were used!
 
I remember an interview with Pascal Gabriel, one of Dido's producers. In it, he revealed that the vocals for her first single used around 40 different comp takes, and that by the time it hit the shops there had been 10 people involved in its production (as producers).

FORTY COMPS!!! Of course, if you see her live, then it's obvious why. The girl can't sing. Anybody can produce a great vocal if tehy comp it that much. I'd sooner have a good performance which went off-pitch occasionally.

If you're looking for singers who don't need tricks, you can't do much better than the incomparable Emmylou Harris. Also, when we saw her in Manchester, she was supported by Patti Griffin who has simply the best live voice I've ever heard. Her records don't come across so well, though.

Also, there's an English folk singer called June Tabor. I've never heard such power live. Truly, truly awesome.

On another tack, Kurt Wagner from Lambchop, despite having a two-note vocal range, sounds awesome live.

I don't think being a good singer is necessarily about an ability to hit the notes, though. There's something more. Look at Michael Jackson - I mean. I think his music's cack, but there's no denying that he's got that "something" about his voice...
 
WEBCYAN said:

Kurt Cobain couldnt sing live. Ever heard rape me on the MTV music awards??
That guy from linkin park sings REALLY high and gravelly on the record but live he cant even get close.
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I just thought I'd throw in a note about Kurt Cobain (being a big Nirvana nut and owner of a number of bootlegs). He was real hit or miss live, he was sometimes off or just weak sounding. For some reason the MTV and SNL performances and other TV stuff were some of their worst. However, some shows were incredible. It was incredible once hearing a cd of his screaming the end guitar solo to the Man Who Sold The World. Wow.
 
2 things

1. If you ever see Finger Eleven live, you won't be dissapointed, everything is head on.


2. Do any of you know where i can get any of these plug-ins or the names?
 
I too saw Linkin Park on Mtv, it was funny, he would hold the microphone to the audience at the hard parts. And the parts he did sing werent that good.

I dont think the song "Crawling" is sung very well anyway, even on the cd. Maybe others differ from my opinion.

Saw Rage Against the Machine about 4 years ago. Best live show I ever saw. At times, I thought I was listening to the cd. It was that good and probably better.

later,
john
 
Bono sings well live. He hits some wrong notes now and then but they are still musical sounding cause thats his style.

Fleetwood Mac was one of the best live bands...and still were on their last tour.
 
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