Sheryl Crow on Austin City Limits

[Mike H]

Did anybody see this? Was she really singing in real time, with heavy processing? Was she singing along with a track? Was she lip-syncing?

At first I thought it was just a delay.........but then I noticed she seemed to be behind the sound sometimes, not ahead of it (or at least my wife and I both thought so).

I was really surprised, since I have seen and enjoyed other televised performances by her. They had a big mic, and she pretty much kept her mouth behind it almost all the time, or was looking to the side. They also didn't stay close in with the camera for very long at a time.

I am seriously asking, I am not trying to start a rumour. I like her music, I like her as a performer, I like her band and I am an all-time fan of Lance Armstrong. So, I am NOT trashing her or criticizing her. I am honestly asking. It just didn't look right to me, but it may well have been just very heavy processing of her voice. I have never seen her voice processed this much.

It was not the standard Austin City Limits show, where this (to my knowledge) has never been an issue. I love their show. It was a music festival on a larger (darker) stage.
Mike

[drundall]

Missed that show but did see Lyle Lovett on ACL and he sounded great. I once saw an outdoors festival on TV with S.C. and she was singing off key the whole time, but I guess that coulda been a bad monitor mix...

[guitarmonkey]

i saw her a couple of years ago here in colorado at 9000 feet in winter park and she was dead on the whole show... never missed a note. it was totally live and she was amazing. i'd be surprised if she was heavily processed. weird?

could it be a bad synching of audio and video?

strange...

g-monkey

She looked fantastic!

[mitgong]

A fairly reliable little bird informs me that there is a hardware Autotune in her FOH rack. Maybe just for sick days? I can't imagine that she'd want or need it, but maybe for the pop-ier songs you just gotta play the game.

[Mike H]

Yes, gm, you are correct.........bad syncing of audio and video. I feel like a dummy for not spotting this when we watched it the first time, by looking more closely at motions of the other musicians. I recorded the show, so we rewatched it, carefully. It just never crossed my mind that they would show an hour long concert on Austin City Limits and it would be synced poorly. But it certainly is. You look closely at the drummer and it is definitely off.

I watched it on satellite (DISH) and I am just wondering if somehow the audio/video feeds over satellite got out-of-sync somehow. I doubt it, because I haven't seen this problem before; but maybe.

Anyway, my fault.

On the other question of processing, the vocals were very reverby and sounded heavily processed to me. Possibly the acoustics in the concert hall were terrible and they didn't deal with this well when the show was recorded. I don't know.

Sorry for the bad info.
Mike

[guitarmonkey]

wow, i feel kind of smart.

don't worry... it won't last...

g-monkey

[Geert van den Berg]

I watched it on satellite (DISH) and I am just wondering if somehow the audio/video feeds over satellite got out-of-sync somehow. I doubt it, because I haven't seen this problem before; but maybe.

I don't have the scientific explanation, but yes, I've encountered this many times with satellite dish at hotel rooms. Movies which I know to be perfectly in sync were offsync.

[sylus]

were you watching it in High Def? i have digital cable and once in a while on the HD channels the audio is slightly behind the video, but can't figure out why. (it does the same for a few of my friends.)

[Waylon]

the sync problem with sat and HI Def is exactly the reason that most home theatre recivers worth their salt have audio delay compensation, generally adjustable per input.. now if only all the channels wold have the same delay.... LOL

[DannyDay]

Originally posted by Mike H
I watched it on satellite (DISH) and I am just wondering if somehow the audio/video feeds over satellite got out-of-sync somehow. I doubt it, because I haven't seen this problem before

I see it all the time where I'm from. Not just PBS. I've been seeing it in a lot of stuff lately; the USA presidential debates for example. Different carriers? I'm not a broadcast guy, but I'd really like to know...

DD.

[Tibbon]

I think she's really cool, but the two times i've seen her... well the first time i could be wrong, but I think she was drunk.... and most recently... just lacking energy...

[wallace]

I saw Shenia Twain on CMT recently and it sounded very Autotuned, background vocals and all.

[djui5]

Originally posted by guitarmonkey
wow, i feel kind of smart.

don't worry... it won't last...

g-monkey

Hahahahahah


It's even funnier coming from a guitar player........

[Bob Olhsson]

The sound of a "High Def" network feed can be off by seconds because the lossy coding transmits only the changes in the picture. The sound isn't locked to the picture anywhere but at the very beginning. The moment the feed gets interrupted, sync is no longer possible without going back to the top and, um, trying again...

[pgk]

The sound of a "High Def" network feed can be off by seconds because the lossy coding transmits only the changes in the picture. The sound isn't locked to the picture anywhere but at the very beginning. The moment the feed gets interrupted, sync is no longer possible without going back to the top and, um, trying again...

thanks bob, that's one of the funniest things i've read all year.

with all this hoopla about hi-def and the upcoming changeover they let something that bone-basic slide? jesu christo. i guess meridian lossless packing lost out or maybe does'nt work in that scenario? i don't keep up with trends digital at all but when mlp came out it seemed like an excellent idea. i feel so sorry for all the early adopters of hi-def, blue laser et all. when is everybody gonna realize that most of those companies dealing with anything digital don't give a rat's ass about developing a given technology to fruition before foisting it on the public? they're usually under enormous pressure from their shareholders, etc to get the product out NOW; "dammit george, i don't care where it is in development, it's gotta be ready for winter NAMM or you're fired!" oh yes, believe it. so they use YOU as their beta testers, and at no cost to them mind you. pretty sweet scenario for them. they simply get it as close as they can and release it knowing damn well it ain't ready, and then just keep their fingers crossed about the hose job they're pitching about "well that was unforseen, those things will be addressed in rev2". and it's usually nothing but a big fat lie. they realize that people have heard this so often by now they've become used to it, be it computers or cd players. iow, it's now commonplace. so, in the new usual business model (in order to save their asses) they simply use joe q public to recoup their r&d costs for revision 1, then they get down to the business of fixing all the bugs they shoulda got correct before they released it! it's all so cynical. gotta please the bean-counters doncha know. by rev 3 or 4 it's finally where it shoulda been at rev 1. amazing. and people just keep buying into this bullshit, wanna be the first on the block.

end of rant.