What Britney Spears Really Sounds Like On Stage

[drmmrboy]

Originally Posted by colinmiller

Why has no one mentioned that because she is lip syncing she is not able to hear herself. When you lip sync you're supposed to actually try to sing the parts to make it more realistic, but because you're not listening to your parts (why would you since it's not being used), you're not going to be able to sing very well. Add dancing to that and well, that's what you get.

But since this was being broadcast, the track still has to be recorded so that they can use her talking in between songs. The track in the clip is not being heard by anyone as the audience is hearing the pre-recorded vocal, and only hearing her in between songs as she talks.

That's what I'm thinking..
If the tracks are indeed real, they weren't meant to be heard. She's more concerned with slutting around the stage, than sounding good. She doesn't have to sound good.

And as my good friend Mr. Crystal says, "It's better to look good than to sing good. And baby, you look mahvelous!"

ps This doesn't mean I think she's a good singer, (or good looking) by any stretch..

[Matti]

PSW Recording Forums: Whatever Works => Britney Spears live microphone in HBO Special
on page 2 there´s a good explanation

Matti

[teo]

Originally Posted by Rich Pell

I agree , that really looks and sounds like a fake... I once read a BT interview where he was asked what it was like working with Britney. He claims that shes a true Pro in the studio . Intonation and timing were flawless and she was very consistant .

I remember reading the same thing about avril when the first album came out...then I heard the record and I thought "well all that autotune...they were just going for that sound..." THEN I heard her live on TV!!! Won't believe those producers interviews anymore!

OTOH, it seems that brotney can actually sing! Woh would have thought?!?

[Pexx]

I always thought this clip was real. If it indeed is fake that means someone with a VERY similar voice to Britney has put a lot of effort in it. I know the internet is full of people with too much time on their hands but still, why bother... I'm not shocked at the clip - it's no secret that lip sync'ing takes place in many productions.

[donsolo]

Yeah, seems pretty real to me.

Oh the vocals aren't in line with the stage show...

sure do seem to match her LIPS.

But seriously, it's impossible to sing like that, dance like that AND sound like that.

I remember watching Lou Bega on something (Grammy's or MTV VMAs) and he was barely walking around but out of breath...

now if she were just a bit thinner again...forgivable.

[Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by warhead

The Britney thing is funny as hell, but fake. It shows her at lots of venues over her career, yet the audio never really changes from show to show, mic to mic, proximity doesn't match, etc.

Good fake though.

War

I cant imagine that this is a fake. I hear a big difference when she changes from a headworn to handheld mic. You also hear the difference in spill between the the two. When she uses a headworn it resembles the spill a headworn would pick up and when she uses the handheld you hear it has a tighter pattern with less spill, a lot less highs in the spill and a closer sound altogether.

Actually when she uses a handheld that´s the only time I could see her using in-ear and the vocal performance is much better than the rest of the clip.

Also I can´t believe that some 14 year old geek nailed the ambience that well. It sounds 100% like the natural reverb in the kind of halls she´s in. I am now talking about when she is talking and it´s actually her voice in the PA. Also the sound and voice is the same when she first is singing and then start talking.

All other noises and breathing sounds, people around here and so on seems totally real.

[caspa08]

is that real

[Peter Hallin]

Of course this is real. Why would she, or most other people for that matter, sound any different when doing advanced tiring dance routines, and knowing that the voice isn't heard. At times she even sings more and better than she needs to in this situation. It is totally evil to have the mic live and record this without her knowing. Albeit funny. :P

[Matti]

A quote

"A friend of mine from high school was her production tech and eventually production manager on tour for a few years. He ran the whole show from his laptop. He has dozens of minidiscs like this of her performing, although he would never release any of them. He stopped touring with her before the tour from the youtube video anyway...so I know it wasn't him.

But...What they do is 2 to 4 weeks before the tour, she goes back into the studio and re-records "live" versions of all her songs so the vocal parts are different from the album. On stage, the whole show, music and vocals, come from a laptop running Digital Performer (at that time, not sure what she uses now). The FOH engineer would put a ducker on her vocal mic. When the track from DP is playing back her vocals, the mic is muted (he would send the ducked signal to his minidisc). When there is no vocals playing back from DP, her mic is live. This allows her to shout and "whoo" and talk to the audience not just between songs, but between vocal phrases in the middle of a song, which adds realism. But the music and singing is still pre-recorded.

They actually use quite a big setup, from what I was told. My friend used to have 2 laptops, identical, both with the whole show loaded on them. Both would play the show in sync using a master timecode generator (which also supplied timecode for the lighting and videos and camera switching). If one computer crashed, the FOH engineer simply switched over to the other computer. Then, as a 3rd backup, the FOH had DA88 machines with the all the tracks on them as well. They were also sync'd up and ran the show every night...if for some reason BOTH computers died, he could unmute the DA88s... and if both computers AND the tapes failed they could go live and actually unmute the mics! God forbid!!! LOL"

Matti

[-silent-sam-]

Originally Posted by d_fu

How do you know? This has been around for years (also as an audio file), long before Youtube even existed...

This one is real too

[MonoBrow]

Corn Harvest......(southpark).

[Raketel]

Originally Posted by MATTI

A quote

"A friend of mine from high school was her production tech and eventually production manager on tour for a few years. He ran the whole show from his laptop. He has dozens of minidiscs like this of her performing, although he would never release any of them. He stopped touring with her before the tour from the youtube video anyway...so I know it wasn't him.

But...What they do is 2 to 4 weeks before the tour, she goes back into the studio and re-records "live" versions of all her songs so the vocal parts are different from the album. On stage, the whole show, music and vocals, come from a laptop running Digital Performer (at that time, not sure what she uses now). The FOH engineer would put a ducker on her vocal mic. When the track from DP is playing back her vocals, the mic is muted (he would send the ducked signal to his minidisc). When there is no vocals playing back from DP, her mic is live. This allows her to shout and "whoo" and talk to the audience not just between songs, but between vocal phrases in the middle of a song, which adds realism. But the music and singing is still pre-recorded.

They actually use quite a big setup, from what I was told. My friend used to have 2 laptops, identical, both with the whole show loaded on them. Both would play the show in sync using a master timecode generator (which also supplied timecode for the lighting and videos and camera switching). If one computer crashed, the FOH engineer simply switched over to the other computer. Then, as a 3rd backup, the FOH had DA88 machines with the all the tracks on them as well. They were also sync'd up and ran the show every night...if for some reason BOTH computers died, he could unmute the DA88s... and if both computers AND the tapes failed they could go live and actually unmute the mics! God forbid!!! LOL"

Matti

This kinda made my day in a good way. Good to read, that some people who are using playback still think of worst cases. At least they can spare themselves from such embarrassement.

[cornutt]

These days I just automatically assume that all big concerts and shows are lip-synced.

Milli Vanilli wasn't wrong -- they were just too far ahead of their time. stike