Regarding the singing and overdubbing of President Obama
hello, as you all have seen, obama sang "let's stay together" at the apollo.
our orchestra thought it might be fun to overdub the music behind him. check it out:
for the record, our group covers the whole political spectrum, and this project was done for fun, not for politics.
some things this forum might enjoy discussing:
1. his pitch
our man sang the song in the original key (F). he has a good sense of pitch, and it's nice to know in this age of modern over-processing he didn't need to be auto-tuned.
2. his mic
the pool mic from the podium would not necessarily be my first choice for his voice. if this singing keeps up, maybe a better mic?
3. bleed
obviously, there is a lot of bleed from the cheering crowd. we broke the source audio into three tracks:
a. obama talking
b. obama singing
c. crowd cheering
4. tempo
we wanted to keep the single camera shot without editing, so his performance was continuous on-screen, and real. therefore, a tempo was established, and then a 2/4 bar added because of the extra time he spent before he sang the second line. some of our guys play with neil diamond, and this added time is referred, by them, as the 'neil diamond' effect.
5. the arrangement
we had a half day to do it. we did a quick take down of the original. on the plus side, we only needed 30 seconds.
6. singing a hit in front of the star who did it originally:
to us, it seems pretty ballsy to sing in front of al green.
7. knowing when to stop
one of the more difficult skills of any performance. two lines was perfect.
8. mastering
though i know i'll get slammed for it in the mastering forum, i'm pretty sure our version wins the loudness war on the youtube president singing videos we jacked up the audio at least 10dB.
9. sax solo by the great larry klimas.
anyway, check it out if you like, and maybe try a mix of your own?
please try to avoid turning this into a boring political debate, if possible.
kind regards
and best wishes with your projects
bobby woods
les deux love orchestra
I like the guy and I was pleasantly surprised by a modestly pleasing, tuneful voice, I think it's fine to kid around a little (although I, personally, would never in a million years sing an Al Green song -- even a snip -- in front of Al Green -- and especially not at the Apollo, a crowd not known for excessive charity to the less-than-enormously-talented, but then Barry's voice is much more pleasant than mine, and I'm a bit shamed to say, more in control than my own), but I would generally prefer the 'Leader of the Fee World' to focus on matters of state and, from my own parochial view, the important job of getting re-elected.
The US doesn't need a Putin.
As someone noted, the guy with some nice, if churchy, chops is former GOP candidate Herman Cain.
Nice job on the OD!
And for whatever it's worth, the Prez pretty much nailed it.
Anybody want to hear Newt give it a shot?
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To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
-Henri Poincare
If he did, his vocal editor was a lot better than most.
Now, maybe the real question might be, Did he have guide tracks or even vocals coming into an earpiece? Singing w/o musical backup is hard for a lot of folks, although the problems usually start from mis-negotiating a harmonic/melodic change, I think. A short phrase has much less chance of going wrong, not to mention wearing out its welcome.
He does have a nice voice but come on, he only sang one line from the song, how difficult is it to get it right? It's not that hard. A lot of singers can easily get a few lines in perfection but would become unbearably bad after that.
He does have a nice voice but come on, he only sang one line from the song, how difficult is it to get it right? It's not that hard. A lot of singers can easily get a few lines in perfection but would become unbearably bad after that.
Like the winner of the Female Country Vocalist Grammy a year or two ago?
Absolutely agreed that getting one line out unmangled is a lot different than singing a whole song, or at least a verse and chorus, which is more or less what Herm McCain did with an alternative version of "Amazing Grace" back while he was apparently still in the GOP nom race. And he did pretty good, too. I mean, he won't replace Sam Cooke in too many gospel-loving hearts, but he did a quite respectable job. (Now, about that 9-9-9 tax plan... )
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we jacked up the audio at least 10dB.
