Her voice is sublime - this being one of the best renditions of this wonderful song - ruined by the producer who believes he can improve it through technology. Don't stop Fil. We rely on your honesty and fairness.
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee that show was supposed to be broadcasting on USA TV.. Before it did happen, Lara broke her contract with them. In order to sabotage her, the AMI also didn't broadcast this show at all, or only very late in the night on TV.
Perhaps because English is not my first language, I can hear in your tone your deep despair about this 'industry' development. I appreciate your conscientious work and hope you will not give up. I try to make your concerns clear to friends and unfortunately too often observe indifference: "so what".
Thank you for this. I am a Lara fanatic. I was a bit miffed at the previous video, but listening to what you are saying I understand that she is amazing, but that some guy visually decided what her performance should have looked like and changed it unnecessarily.
6:20 How any producer (or anyone else for that matter) could listen to that outstanding vocal performance and decide “I must fix this” is beyond ridiculous.
About the time CD/LP/cassette sales peaked in1999, sensitive ear-buds (lots of dB per mW) which allowed very high volume from portable devices became the norm. The reaction was legislation to limit the output of said devices (voltage and current). The music industry's answer was to compress the snot of everything they released to max out RMS (overall) volume and rob all music of crescendos and dynamics, even to the point of obnoxious distortion. This was "the Loudness War" (ETA >> another 'industry standard') and it signalled the beginning of the end of recorded music as an art form. The end has arrived in the form of the new "industry standard" for digital pitch-correction of voices such that they don't sound human anymore. I've quoted the song before - _"I saw Satan laughing with delight, the day the music died"._
This seems like nonsense. The loudness war originated with the need to stand out on jukeboxes and radio in the 60s and 70s, pushing producers to increase the volume of their tracks. Overcompression sacrifices dynamics, resulting in dull, static music with distortions. Online platforms like Spotify have tried to address loudness discrepancies, putting more pressure on music makers to reduce the loudness of tracks. The solution is for artists to prioritize sound quality and dynamic range over extreme loudness to create more enjoyable music. The advent of CDs and digital recording allowed for even more aggressive loudness increases through tools like compressors
I agree. The loudness war started in 1990 with dynamic compression and by 1999 music sounded so harsh and shrill it's no longer pleasant to listen to. Why everyone wanted to jump on the train to use this technology baffles me!?
The loudness wars were fought on radio. It was a direct response to the rise of FM radio over AM. Only when FM radio acended to take over music did compression make sense- the way the signal was modulated did not change with FM but would have on AM. You can overmodulate an AM signal with too much compression in a way you cannot on FM.
Great analysis Fil! Artists should start getting in their contract that producers aren't allowed to alter their voices without permission. It won't happen of course...
I posted this on another video but it might have been lost in the comments. I have a friend who’s a world class orchestra musician and was paid to play with Tina Guo (cellist) and Jonathon Antoine (singer) in a televised broadcast of his performance of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables which can be found on UA-cam. Tina and Jonathon performed live to a backing track while the musicians were paid to mime.
I can't sing for to save my life, but a mate and I did an album of covers for sh!ts and giggles a handful of years ago and felt the need to pitch correct one of my vocals. It honestly sounded better being less perfect. Cheers for another great video Fil.
Assuming a note bend should be centered on pitch is a fundamental misunderstanding of music. Some bends will be centered, but others will be referenced to the top or bottom of the range. A guitar string bend is referenced to the bottom pitch (unbent string). A guitar tremolo is (usually) referenced to the top pitch. Voices do the same thing, either bending down in pitch or up, or back and forth across the reference pitch. It's all about the context.
Yes, thanks. The pitch correction is bad enough but the producers visually pushing notes onto the lines do not fundamentally understand music. Equal temperament is just a hack so that instruments like the piano can play in any key and always sound reasonably in tune. When listening and playing melodically some notes will be pushed a shade higher, some a shade lower. In a scale you might even play the same note differently on the way up the scale than you do on the way down. Pushing everything onto arbitrary pitch lines and time grids is taking all the feel and emotion out of music.
Unfortunately it doesn't matter how clearly Fil makes his points, there will always be commenters who get angry and swear he's saying the exact opposite. Comprehension skills are often lacking in those leaving heated comments. Such is life on the internet!😉
This is madness that they are doing this to a singer like Lara Fabian who is about the emotion of a song and conveying the story of the song through the lyrics, using different dynamics. And to think they were correcting pretty much perfect and as artist intended vocals as far back as 20 odd years ago. Lara does sing live and you hear her actual vocals at her own concerts to this day, as this fan footage shows and others which are out there of recent performances do. I really don't understand why the industry does this with any singers let alone great ones and ones who sing with emotion. I appreciate that you are exposing the industry as a whole and not the artist.
@@marketads1 I did yes and was interesting. I was less bothered about that as sort of knew and thought standard for this generation of singers, plus I get Taylor is more of a performer than I would say a singer and that's not insulting her just think of her as a songwriter and about creating an event. Which is why when see great singers who don't need pitch correction being pitch corrected it's just insane, when add on one who is expressive and an emotional singer just makes no sense to me that this is now the standard in the industry. I don't think Lara would have had much control over this back in 2001, from 2005 when as understand had her own record company and tour recordings, then that would be different if those were being pitch corrected for release. I don't know enough about Taylor to know how much control she has over the auto tuning but assume does over the playback which again I get when doing the choreography based songs. I think Taylor fans are happy with this though as like mentioned earlier her concerts are very much events.
@@amandahyde4905 There really aren't enough of us that pay 100% attention to music (I usually read the score as I listen) to drive business decisions, at least outside of the classical/jazz niches.
I always wanted you to do a review of Lara Fabian. But, besides her wonderful tonal control, I wanted you to review how she is able to convey emotion so much better than many other singers.
As a child in France I recall that performances on TV were always on 'playback'. So I guess it is quite expected on TV show. However, for live performances on a stage, definitely expect live singing!
Too often context is missing here. Many TV appearances are featuring or selling a particular recorded song and artist. So many recorded songs cannot be replicated. On a TV show. For example So many Motown songs involved complex production in the studio. Try and imagine any Supremes or Four Tops song performed on television without the layers of effects and instruments that makeup the record version. Recreating Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” in a TV studio…
Thanks Fil for another excellent report. It’s a tragedy that everything has to be shifted, corrected and overproduced. All part of music being primarily a product now produced by risk averse business types who always seem to know better…
Went to Billy Strings show in Austin last weekend...live as it can get...and he was absolutely spot on bro.. if u can do it live once, you can do it again live maybe even better..happy holidays,...your eye opening presentations are needed...❤
This is so weird! After watching your Wicked vid I went on to watch Tim’s. I never heard of him before that although I’ve followed you for years! Now…the world collides. Me in SoCal watching you and Tim. My, my! 💜💙❤️💛
Unfortunately, this only stains the singer's image and not the producer's. That's why i prefer videos from the audience, specially from singer like Lara that can definitely SING. These big productions are always sus...
It turns out that only independent artists can control what's done to their music before release. If I were vocalist, this would make me hesitate before making a deal. Of course you can't get big internationally televised concerts as an independent artist.
In order to clarify something, I guess that people is posting comments here without watching the video at all or listening at what FIL is explaining. The title is "Producers can break a great vocal performance"! Plus, he is highlighting how good is her voice and how great is her pitch. FIL himself said it was a great live performance.( 11.40 listen at his analysis of her voice and opinion ) He is not saying it was on lipsync or miming. It was absolutely live and well done. That it was absolutely accurate. Then the USA producers decided to intervene.. Alterating the real true deliver and interpretation of the artist..that it was hijacked! . Did they need to do it???? Why it's such a common thing? That's the point of it all.. Some of you is getting the wrong message...
It's sad when an industry standard makes you think about issues and problems.. But I'm glad I was able to experience music before all of this started to become the norm. With that I mean music from the 80s and most of the 90s.
As someone who has worked with and around tools all their life, I have observed that if someone has a cool tool, they're going to find a way and a place to use it
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee I've was gifted a piece of beautiful red Pipestone from North Dakota, that I've been holding for 20yrs. Your comment reminded me that I need to get the Dremel out and make that bowl
Thank you Fil for being, in my eyes, a sign that there are actually music professionals who will not only not allow themselves to be "unvoiced", but will point out the truth objectively. It is clear, or should be, it's not the singer you are pointing the finger at but the suits behind the curtain. Keep up the great videos. Have any pro publications contacted you for interviews? Would love to see one.
Fil, I think a lot of people are misinterpreting what you’re saying. Comments seem to indicate they think Lara was miming, when instead you’re saying that her “live” vocal was great and some producer “corrected” it afterwards. (If I’m wrong, tell me, but that’s what I took away from your analysis).
This has gone beyond ridiculous. Artists need to fight this horse crap instead of giving in to all this malarkey. I want the real live performances. It's the so called imperfections that make for perfection. Get real producers!!!!!!!
Not too long ago a friend of mine told me he got tickets to see Rod Stewart. He said they were $300 but they were worth it. I said , Really ? I got the CD's for about $30 (not sure what that is in pounds) so we will probly be hearing the same vocal 👍
It as if there's a campaign to get as many as possible 'mentally tuned' to the even tempered frequency in preparation for building their busy bee hive controlled society where everyone sounds like Android machines with no soul that cares. Keep up the great work Fil❤
So long as producers continue to be the gatekeepers through which the large firms exert control over the performers, they will retain the power to make or break them.
No longer am I limited to scorn or contempt, I feel that these so-called music “producers” are no different than the ignorant thugs that spray paint graffiti on statues or portraits in a museum. They are not correcting anything-they are destroying the art created by vocalists (and their musicians, engineers, and true professional producers) that rightly achieved legendary status as originally recorded. The flat and sharp choices are artistic expression choices made to emote the song’s lyrics and give the audience “the feels” by performances that are purposefully not creating vocals aligning with equal temperament tuning. Altering these performances after the fact is not professional production, it is an abomination that rises to the level of spray painting the Van Goth hanging on display in the museum - it may not be your cuppa tea, but the art should be preserved as closely as possible as to how the artist created it. Ms. Fabian similarly needs her art preserved, not vandalized - make no mistake these so-called “producers” are vandals, just as protesters spray painting their message/graffiti atop the Van Goth canvas in the museum. It is a travesty. These vandals should never be given laurels in the music industry and they should be treated as pariahs and forced out of the industry for their willful vandalism of recordings. For me this is not only true for legends like Ms. Fabian, but all recording artists, amateurs and professionals alike. The art was created. Down with the vandals, Fil. Let the preservation of art be maintained in the manner created be it revered or unheard. Vandals are at the gates of the archives of Music! Let’s do what we can to preserve the music for the sake of the vocalists’ artistry.
Producers should not be allowed anywhere near the mixing desk! They should be permanently banned from control rooms! They destroy music with their idiotic pitch interference (it does not deserve to be called 'correction').
Is there any chance you will move to 50% of finding excellent un-modified performances? I believe someone like Ren and his "Hi Ren" performance would be a way to highlight those artists? I hope? I admire him so much.
Hi Fil - sorry if you have answered this question in the past - but do you think that TV shows like American Idol and others have vocals that are pitch edited before they are aired?
So you go to a famous restaurant for the experience of a specific chef. And the Maitre D switches out the sauces and garnishes. We choose to pay the chef.
Fil, I appreciate your balanced presentation of the facts and your lack of name calling. So I'll do it for you. Many of these re-tuning producers are idiots who can't 'hear' music. These musicless corrections are taking all the nuance, character, unique swagger, strut and grace out of what are Brilliant performances. So many singers push sharp and pull flat to deliberately enhance the emotional delivery of their Craft. Imagine taking sandpaper to a master work because you think the carpenter should have done it differently, so many analogies to describe the desecration of an artists intentions. I'd say more about these 'people', but that would be an insult to perfectly good aresholes everywhere.
Many of these comments refer to producers "ruining" the music. But, be mindful that, right or wrong,to those producers, they are "improving" the music. I'm thinking that change around this may only come about, if at all, when the performers contract either that no pitch correction at all be used post-performance, or that any and all such changes must be approved by the performers. Good luck getting signed as a new artist if you demand those terms though
First camera phone came out in 1999. If someone knew the date of this performance it'd be easy to clarify the possibility of this being recorded by something other than a camcorder.
I agree with you I guess singers don't necessarly know how the production fakes there voice And whener they discover it, regarding to the contract I'm not sure they're allowed to refuse it neither making comments about it
Since I first began to notice what was happening I didn’t know what it was. But I knew my ears didn’t like it. It’s weird and fake. It’s better when it isn’t perfect.
I saw Travis this week at Eastbourne. Totally live. They restarted a song because Fran forgot the lyrics (he wrote). Ad libbed throughout and was an absolutely brilliant gig. No pitch control, just a band playing their music (very well).
It's getting so much worse- I've listened to 2 recent posts of AI albums- 1 being Beatles tracks "covered" by a "Motown male vocal group a la The Temptations and another that is Lep Zeppelin tracks covered by 60S R&B girl group. Both albums sound authentic to the point you could be easily fooled unlike the stuff that was appearing around the start of 2024 that sounded awkward, clunky and quite easy to distinguish- the "fried" vocals always shining through at points. This is getting really dystopian now. Truth, Ethics- everything is turned on its head. The world is taking quite a dark turn as we enter 2025.
I get it! Singing is difficult and one cannot be expected to sing perfectly every time they get on stage, however, lip syncing and miming is fakery and in my opinion is wrong! Everyone seems to be doing it so I'll just buy the CD or download the song if I want to hear it. (By the way, I love Lara Fabian and her singing, but will refuse to pay big bucks to see her perform if it's nothing but Lip Sync and Miming!)
Uhm but she sings live most of the time, only in some russian shows with Igor Krutoy or in certain TV participations she was forced to do playback About this show "From Lara with Love" it was a TV special that later came out as VHS, that's why it's specially edited I think she did several takes for the songs and they picked the best one but it's still live singing. It's not a studio recording at all.
@@damianvc31Nobody's doubting she's singing it live. The point is, pitch correction was involved and it was edited to make her sound better than she actually is. That's the problem. I remember watching her singing Adagio at the World Music Awards. She was phenomenal as always. But she didn't sound extremely polished compared to her Adagio singing on the Lara With Love show. It might be edited as well, I don't know but it doesn't sound like she's 100% perfect pitch on every single note. To be honest, I prefer her singing at the World Music Awards better. I like hearing her natural raw vocals vs an edited well polished version.
@@secrets.295 well this poster did lol He talked about lip syncing which is false Now if we talk about polishing vocals, I have yet to watch this analysis... it's true, in this show she sounds absolutely perfect, at a level that it's likely it has some post production But that's normal for any of these professional releases. It's also done after the fact, the people watching that live did hear the original audio. So I don't know what all the fuss is about here. Probably all the recorded DVDs or BRays nowadays have this kind of polishing. It's fine if you prefer the other performances, she did Adagio a lot of times and she sounds amazing every time. The one in From Lara with Love is my favorite, maybe because that post production, again it doesn't bother me nor I think it's negative to make a released performance sound as good as possible, within what's reasonable
Have you even watched this before commenting? In the video he said she sang this live and was very accurate with her pitch. And she sounded awesome. Then Fil criticized a producer, that for no reason whatsoever decided to "improve" those vocals for the official release. But they didn’t really improve anything, they just removed her expression. So they destroyed all the hard work she put into his song. How do come up with random accusations, that have nothing to do with what was said or shown? How can you blame her? She just sang live and was almost over the lines to begin with - without any corrections.
@@EllaSilentDragon now I'm curious about this video Do you guys really think the producer did a bad job there? For me it sounds completely amazing...if anything the release enhanced her performance, and didn't remove any of the emotions, this concert is regarded as one of the best showings of expression from a vocalist ever. Specially in the already very famous covers of Je Suis Malade, Caruso and also in this song Broken Vow But I'll watch to see this different perspective I completely agree with you though it's absurd to put any blame on Lara even if you dislike the end result
I would say it's possible they don't know before hand, but when they listen back to the finished product, they'd have to know. And Lara is my absolute favorite.
@ I’m just thinking from the angle of, if I could really sing, and I think I’m there singing live and my vocal is being fed out to the world as it is, I’d be pissed to know someone was messing about with it.
So, when are we actually going to hear what the artists think of these shenanigans and when are we going to hear from the producers as to why they keep doing it?
Singers don't put things in contracts; certainly the initial contract is pretty standard. Barbara Streisand was the one exception - she would not sign without artistic control and was willing to waive an advance.
The great majority of today's music on the radio and all musical media are very much agressive and exhausting on our hearing. Unlike a loud rock band of previous decades, it is not the loudness, but the impersonal feel of today's production that brings fatigue to my ears.
As much as I agree with the despicable cheating dimension to these pitch corrections, I’d like to give credit to the dozens of reaction UA-camrs who have been awed by Lara’s performances next to never made a single mention of pitch, and rather focused on what matters most in her performances : emotion. So yes pitch correcting this voice is ridiculous but in fine, it thankfully takes very little away from the original performance.
@@abc456f Renee Fleming is the only singer to do the national anthem live recently, but she pre-recorded it just in case...and had it been two degrees colder she would have requested the tape be used.
Fil can I ask a question? When you show us the side by side vocals data… why don’t you have the lines on the same level? Eg the C4 on the left is positioned one line higher than the right set of data? Just curious if there is a reason behind this…I think some people get confused when they first start watching (especially on a small device where it’s hard to see the text) bc they don’t think it’s lining up lol.
This video may now explain why I feel the way I do about Sarah Brightman performances. I was a fan but it got difficult to listen to her on "live" performances and concerts.
By the time you do pitch correction, timing correction, apply the compulsory song formula etc. you might as well use AI to produce everything from here on, run it through the 'perfection filter' and hand it to the masses. What a boring (robotic) future we await!
Fil, just curious why your left/right pitch grids don't line up - it's visually confusing (at least to me). For example, in this video I'm at 8:55 and the right pitch grid E4 lines up with the left pitch grid B3. Any reason why they are not aligned to be identical? Regardless, as always, another great analysis!
In germany we have a word for that: verschlimmbessern. To make something worse by trying to make it better. Seems thats all mainstream producers these days...
Another reason why I don’t pay any attention to current music. Besides the writing being the pits of the world, there’s a good chance the tracks have been digitally altered in post. I pretty much only listen to “old” music of the last century- jazz, blues, and rock up through the 90s before DAWs took over. Pitch correction will never be applied to Billie Holiday or Sara Vaughn because they’re not popular enough.
They'll come for Vaughn and Holliday if they decide to release any compilations or find unreleased masters. If they can pitch correct Mercury, they'll pitch correct the jazz divas. Its a shame you sit out modern music. Jazz fusion had quite the resurgence with folks like Christian Scott A'tunde Adjuah, Nubya Garcia, Elena Pinderhughes (who has toured with Herbie Hancock) and London Brew. You should check out Tiny Desk concerts (DakhaBrakha's is wild. Lisa O'Neill singing Old Note cripples me with tears, Willow Smith and her band are in the pocket) or KEXP live. Or KCRW live. Current music isn't the charts.
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee Ai music robot channels are already outdoing real people 😳 people are flocking to it 😒 im not sure if it is the novelty at this stage.. but it's not looking good .. we already see "what if led zep were a motown band" and these types of abominations 😳 getting 100ks clicks and thumbsups 😳
I was at a Mark Lanegan gig (Scraps at Midnight tour) and his Musical Director back then, the mighty mighty Mike Johnson was supporting him, likely to save a ton of money. Mike hit a bum note during a vocal line and was visibly miffed about it but i was like "Live music in the raw!!" I didn't come to see a perfect rendition and mistakes are part and parcel. Infact on Deja Vu, 4+20 has a vocal glitch and CSNY w DT & GR released it anyway. Same with Kansas, theres vocal misses on their live lp.
I might be wrong : no use correcting to the tuning fork an a capela singing Who cares ? The aliens ? The Supreme AI ? But as shown in the recent past : they did. They do it each and every day The pleasure of being evil ? I don't unserstand... The reason why...
I love Lara! Don't mess with her voice!
Great comparative analysis. Thank you Fil. I'm tired of producers ruining music.
Nothing tops the live vocals of an extraordinary vocalist
Her voice is sublime - this being one of the best renditions of this wonderful song - ruined by the producer who believes he can improve it through technology.
Don't stop Fil. We rely on your honesty and fairness.
The job of the producer is to improve the sales, not the artistic merit.
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee spoken like a true breadhead.
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee that show was supposed to be broadcasting on USA TV.. Before it did happen, Lara broke her contract with them. In order to sabotage her, the AMI also didn't broadcast this show at all, or only very late in the night on TV.
@@MGrayl-ib5fo Everything I need to know about today's pop I can get from the Wall Street Journal.
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee then he'd be disappointed to learn that after a lifetime of buying music, I stopped doing so thanks to the use of auto-tune!
Perhaps because English is not my first language, I can hear in your tone your deep despair about this 'industry' development. I appreciate your conscientious work and hope you will not give up. I try to make your concerns clear to friends and unfortunately too often observe indifference: "so what".
@@rainerwaansinn We All can hear the tone
You write in English better than most people who only know English.
I wish we could go back to real LIVE vocals and hear all of the expression it was meant to convey!
Thank you Fil! ❤🙏
This is perfect. Showing how great a singer she is, and exposing the real culprits! The producers! 👍
Thank you for this. I am a Lara fanatic. I was a bit miffed at the previous video, but listening to what you are saying I understand that she is amazing, but that some guy visually decided what her performance should have looked like and changed it unnecessarily.
6:20 How any producer (or anyone else for that matter) could listen to that outstanding vocal performance and decide “I must fix this” is beyond ridiculous.
About the time CD/LP/cassette sales peaked in1999, sensitive ear-buds (lots of dB per mW) which allowed very high volume from portable devices became the norm. The reaction was legislation to limit the output of said devices (voltage and current). The music industry's answer was to compress the snot of everything they released to max out RMS (overall) volume and rob all music of crescendos and dynamics, even to the point of obnoxious distortion. This was "the Loudness War" (ETA >> another 'industry standard') and it signalled the beginning of the end of recorded music as an art form. The end has arrived in the form of the new "industry standard" for digital pitch-correction of voices such that they don't sound human anymore. I've quoted the song before - _"I saw Satan laughing with delight, the day the music died"._
This seems like nonsense.
The loudness war originated with the need to stand out on jukeboxes and radio in the 60s and 70s, pushing producers to increase the volume of their tracks.
Overcompression sacrifices dynamics, resulting in dull, static music with distortions.
Online platforms like Spotify have tried to address loudness discrepancies, putting more pressure on music makers to reduce the loudness of tracks.
The solution is for artists to prioritize sound quality and dynamic range over extreme loudness to create more enjoyable music.
The advent of CDs and digital recording allowed for even more aggressive loudness increases through tools like compressors
@@EliteRock Neil Young deserves credit for calling this out long ago
I agree. The loudness war started in 1990 with dynamic compression and by 1999 music sounded so harsh and shrill it's no longer pleasant to listen to. Why everyone wanted to jump on the train to use this technology baffles me!?
You are so damned correct!!!!
The loudness wars were fought on radio. It was a direct response to the rise of FM radio over AM. Only when FM radio acended to take over music did compression make sense- the way the signal was modulated did not change with FM but would have on AM. You can overmodulate an AM signal with too much compression in a way you cannot on FM.
Fil, I am so upset by producers ruining music! Hopefully there will come a time when this will stop! Excellent analysis, Fil 💜
To even touch a vocal by Lara should be a crime!
I have that Lara Fabian CD and love it!!! That song always made me feel sad because she sang the lyrics so well, WITH EXPRESSION!!! ❤❤❤
It's possible that the cd is pitch corrected as well. And Lara is my absolute favorite. This is very disturbing.
@abc456f yes I understand. I just love her voice.
Great analysis Fil! Artists should start getting in their contract that producers aren't allowed to alter their voices without permission. It won't happen of course...
That's WHY I quit producing and went back to being an audio engineer....
I posted this on another video but it might have been lost in the comments. I have a friend who’s a world class orchestra musician and was paid to play with Tina Guo (cellist) and Jonathon Antoine (singer) in a televised broadcast of his performance of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables which can be found on UA-cam. Tina and Jonathon performed live to a backing track while the musicians were paid to mime.
Quality analysis Fil. Thank you.
I can't sing for to save my life, but a mate and I did an album of covers for sh!ts and giggles a handful of years ago and felt the need to pitch correct one of my vocals. It honestly sounded better being less perfect. Cheers for another great video Fil.
Assuming a note bend should be centered on pitch is a fundamental misunderstanding of music. Some bends will be centered, but others will be referenced to the top or bottom of the range. A guitar string bend is referenced to the bottom pitch (unbent string). A guitar tremolo is (usually) referenced to the top pitch. Voices do the same thing, either bending down in pitch or up, or back and forth across the reference pitch. It's all about the context.
Yes, thanks. The pitch correction is bad enough but the producers visually pushing notes onto the lines do not fundamentally understand music. Equal temperament is just a hack so that instruments like the piano can play in any key and always sound reasonably in tune. When listening and playing melodically some notes will be pushed a shade higher, some a shade lower. In a scale you might even play the same note differently on the way up the scale than you do on the way down. Pushing everything onto arbitrary pitch lines and time grids is taking all the feel and emotion out of music.
Thanks for another great video !!!
Unfortunately it doesn't matter how clearly Fil makes his points, there will always be commenters who get angry and swear he's saying the exact opposite. Comprehension skills are often lacking in those leaving heated comments. Such is life on the internet!😉
This is madness that they are doing this to a singer like Lara Fabian who is about the emotion of a song and conveying the story of the song through the lyrics, using different dynamics. And to think they were correcting pretty much perfect and as artist intended vocals as far back as 20 odd years ago. Lara does sing live and you hear her actual vocals at her own concerts to this day, as this fan footage shows and others which are out there of recent performances do. I really don't understand why the industry does this with any singers let alone great ones and ones who sing with emotion. I appreciate that you are exposing the industry as a whole and not the artist.
Did you see Fil’s Taylor Swift Eras Tour?
Who needs the emotion or story of a song when they are on the treadmill or stuck in traffic on the GSP?
@@marketads1 I did yes and was interesting. I was less bothered about that as sort of knew and thought standard for this generation of singers, plus I get Taylor is more of a performer than I would say a singer and that's not insulting her just think of her as a songwriter and about creating an event. Which is why when see great singers who don't need pitch correction being pitch corrected it's just insane, when add on one who is expressive and an emotional singer just makes no sense to me that this is now the standard in the industry. I don't think Lara would have had much control over this back in 2001, from 2005 when as understand had her own record company and tour recordings, then that would be different if those were being pitch corrected for release. I don't know enough about Taylor to know how much control she has over the auto tuning but assume does over the playback which again I get when doing the choreography based songs. I think Taylor fans are happy with this though as like mentioned earlier her concerts are very much events.
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee I guess in that scenario I wouldn't necessarily listening to a singer like that or a song like that.
@@amandahyde4905 There really aren't enough of us that pay 100% attention to music (I usually read the score as I listen) to drive business decisions, at least outside of the classical/jazz niches.
I always liked your older videos that simply talked about the performance, what they were doing and what made it good.
It is an analysis. Data collected and revalidatable. Not opinion. Thanks Fil. Another great breakdown.
Exactly what an objective analysis is meant to be. Factual and able to be revalidated and get the same results. 👍
I would love to hear an interview with a producer.
I always wanted you to do a review of Lara Fabian. But, besides her wonderful tonal control, I wanted you to review how she is able to convey emotion so much better than many other singers.
Excellent video.
As a child in France I recall that performances on TV were always on 'playback'. So I guess it is quite expected on TV show. However, for live performances on a stage, definitely expect live singing!
Playback in any circumstance has always been more acceptable on the Continent than in the Anglosphere.
Too often context is missing here.
Many TV appearances are featuring or selling a particular recorded song and artist. So many recorded songs cannot be replicated. On a TV show.
For example So many Motown songs involved complex production in the studio. Try and imagine any Supremes or Four Tops song performed on television without the layers of effects and instruments that makeup the record version.
Recreating Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” in a TV studio…
Thanks Fil for another excellent report. It’s a tragedy that everything has to be shifted, corrected and overproduced. All part of music being primarily a product now produced by risk averse business types who always seem to know better…
Your comment totally reminded me of a Rex Orange County song. 😂 excellent❣️...cause THEY know best❣️
Omg this is my reaction request thanks so much!
OMG! I waited ages for Lara here! Already commenting and haven't even watched it yet!
Went to Billy Strings show in Austin last weekend...live as it can get...and he was absolutely spot on bro.. if u can do it live once, you can do it again live maybe even better..happy holidays,...your eye opening presentations are needed...❤
Billy is unbelievably amazing and fantastic and special.
Superb talent. I’ve seen him twice in London, both gigs sensational.
Keep up the good fight, Fil!
This is so weird! After watching your Wicked vid I went on to watch Tim’s. I never heard of him before that although I’ve followed you for years! Now…the world collides. Me in SoCal watching you and Tim. My, my! 💜💙❤️💛
Unfortunately, this only stains the singer's image and not the producer's. That's why i prefer videos from the audience, specially from singer like Lara that can definitely SING. These big productions are always sus...
It turns out that only independent artists can control what's done to their music before release. If I were vocalist, this would make me hesitate before making a deal. Of course you can't get big internationally televised concerts as an independent artist.
support your works Fil! Keep it up,
Another informative video. Rock Fil !
Bet you never thought this would be your career arc =)
In any case, Lara knows how to sing and in concert she doesn't cheat because it sometimes shows in her performances...
Thank you.
Thank you for this video and explanations, Fil!
In order to clarify something, I guess that people is posting comments here without watching the video at all or listening at what FIL is explaining. The title is "Producers can break a great vocal performance"!
Plus, he is highlighting how good is her voice and how great is her pitch. FIL himself said it was a great live performance.( 11.40 listen at his analysis of her voice and opinion ) He is not saying it was on lipsync or miming. It was absolutely live and well done. That it was absolutely accurate.
Then the USA producers decided to intervene.. Alterating the real true deliver and interpretation of the artist..that it was hijacked! . Did they need to do it???? Why it's such a common thing?
That's the point of it all..
Some of you is getting the wrong message...
It's sad when an industry standard makes you think about issues and problems.. But I'm glad I was able to experience music before all of this started to become the norm. With that I mean music from the 80s and most of the 90s.
As someone who has worked with and around tools all their life, I have observed that if someone has a cool tool, they're going to find a way and a place to use it
Anything you need done with my new Dremel?
The old "even though can, doesn't mean you should", or however that saying goes.
@@Linda-qp9kp right or wrong
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee I've was gifted a piece of beautiful red Pipestone from North Dakota, that I've been holding for 20yrs. Your comment reminded me that I need to get the Dremel out and make that bowl
It sounds like someone has a job and has to do something to justify them having that job.
I'll take a less than perfect performance with some vocal cracks over a recording 10/10 times. Authenticity is more important than perfection.
Artists need to speak up and audiences need to shame the producers
Shame a producer?! I don't think so. 💲 NO shame.
Thanks Thanks
Smile at 2:50 made my day whole day!
Thank you Fil for being, in my eyes, a sign that there are actually music professionals who will not only not allow themselves to be "unvoiced", but will point out the truth objectively. It is clear, or should be, it's not the singer you are pointing the finger at but the suits behind the curtain. Keep up the great videos. Have any pro publications contacted you for interviews? Would love to see one.
Good job Fil 🎸
Fil, I think a lot of people are misinterpreting what you’re saying. Comments seem to indicate they think Lara was miming, when instead you’re saying that her “live” vocal was great and some producer “corrected” it afterwards. (If I’m wrong, tell me, but that’s what I took away from your analysis).
You're correct. There are just a good number of people here who have comprehension problems.
I think a lot of people just don’t watch the video before leaving a comment.
@@cindi1313 Fil has said as much before. He can tell from his analytics how much time someone actually watches.
Rock !
Fil You need to sell T-shirts,
"A 440 Equal Temperament"
This has gone beyond ridiculous. Artists need to fight this horse crap instead of giving in to all this malarkey. I want the real live performances. It's the so called imperfections that make for perfection. Get real producers!!!!!!!
Not too long ago a friend of mine told me he got tickets to see Rod Stewart. He said they were $300 but they were worth it. I said , Really ? I got the CD's for about $30 (not sure what that is in pounds) so we will probly be hearing the same vocal 👍
It as if there's a campaign to get as many as possible 'mentally tuned' to the even tempered frequency in preparation for building their busy bee hive controlled society where everyone sounds like Android machines with no soul that cares.
Keep up the great work Fil❤
So long as producers continue to be the gatekeepers through which the large firms exert control over the performers, they will retain the power to make or break them.
No longer am I limited to scorn or contempt, I feel that these so-called music “producers” are no different than the ignorant thugs that spray paint graffiti on statues or portraits in a museum.
They are not correcting anything-they are destroying the art created by vocalists (and their musicians, engineers, and true professional producers) that rightly achieved legendary status as originally recorded. The flat and sharp choices are artistic expression choices made to emote the song’s lyrics and give the audience “the feels” by performances that are purposefully not creating vocals aligning with equal temperament tuning. Altering these performances after the fact is not professional production, it is an abomination that rises to the level of spray painting the Van Goth hanging on display in the museum - it may not be your cuppa tea, but the art should be preserved as closely as possible as to how the artist created it.
Ms. Fabian similarly needs her art preserved, not vandalized - make no mistake these so-called “producers” are vandals, just as protesters spray painting their message/graffiti atop the Van Goth canvas in the museum. It is a travesty. These vandals should never be given laurels in the music industry and they should be treated as pariahs and forced out of the industry for their willful vandalism of recordings. For me this is not only true for legends like Ms. Fabian, but all recording artists, amateurs and professionals alike. The art was created. Down with the vandals, Fil. Let the preservation of art be maintained in the manner created be it revered or unheard. Vandals are at the gates of the archives of Music! Let’s do what we can to preserve the music for the sake of the vocalists’ artistry.
Producers should not be allowed anywhere near the mixing desk! They should be permanently banned from control rooms! They destroy music with their idiotic pitch interference (it does not deserve to be called 'correction').
Is there any chance you will move to 50% of finding excellent un-modified performances? I believe someone like Ren and his "Hi Ren" performance would be a way to highlight those artists? I hope? I admire him so much.
Kool, many thanks.
Hi Fil - sorry if you have answered this question in the past - but do you think that TV shows like American Idol and others have vocals that are pitch edited before they are aired?
Yes! He had whit some TV-shows. Go to his video section and scrool back like 1 year and he has videos about this
@@AnjektusStudio Hey - thanks will do - best Mikalyn Hay
So you go to a famous restaurant for the experience of a specific chef. And the Maitre D switches out the sauces and garnishes. We choose to pay the chef.
Take my man card, but Lara Fabian's singing is sublime.
Fil, I appreciate your balanced presentation of the facts and your lack of name calling. So I'll do it for you. Many of these re-tuning producers are idiots who can't 'hear' music. These musicless corrections are taking all the nuance, character, unique swagger, strut and grace out of what are Brilliant performances. So many singers push sharp and pull flat to deliberately enhance the emotional delivery of their Craft. Imagine taking sandpaper to a master work because you think the carpenter should have done it differently, so many analogies to describe the desecration of an artists intentions. I'd say more about these 'people', but that would be an insult to perfectly good aresholes everywhere.
Many of these comments refer to producers "ruining" the music. But, be mindful that, right or wrong,to those producers, they are "improving" the music.
I'm thinking that change around this may only come about, if at all, when the performers contract either that no pitch correction at all be used post-performance,
or that any and all such changes must be approved by the performers.
Good luck getting signed as a new artist if you demand those terms though
Just got thru binge watching TARJA'S Dark Christmas concert yesterday in Prague !!!!!!!!!!!!! No producer there !!!!!!!!!!!!! ☮☮💘💘💥💥
I think it's fashionable to have robot voices now a days.
And, it may be an offshoot of "everybody gets a trophy" thing. But you are right as well.
Melodyne == Cyberdyne Systems
I don’t think the person was recording on her "phone", it was early 2000 and there were no smartphone, only cam recorder lol
First camera phone came out in 1999. If someone knew the date of this performance it'd be easy to clarify the possibility of this being recorded by something other than a camcorder.
@ there is some debate but it’s either November/December 1999 or January 2000
I agree with you I guess singers don't necessarly know how the production fakes there voice
And whener they discover it, regarding to the contract I'm not sure they're allowed to refuse it neither making comments about it
Since I first began to notice what was happening I didn’t know what it was. But I knew my ears didn’t like it. It’s weird and fake. It’s better when it isn’t perfect.
I saw Travis this week at Eastbourne. Totally live. They restarted a song because Fran forgot the lyrics (he wrote). Ad libbed throughout and was an absolutely brilliant gig. No pitch control, just a band playing their music (very well).
👀Trolls? 😂 ..but of course. Keep on keepin' on, Fil❣️💯❤️🔥 The truth shall set them free❣️🎯
It's getting so much worse- I've listened to 2 recent posts of AI albums- 1 being Beatles tracks "covered" by a "Motown male vocal group a la The Temptations and another that is Lep Zeppelin tracks covered by 60S R&B girl group.
Both albums sound authentic to the point you could be easily fooled unlike the stuff that was appearing around the start of 2024 that sounded awkward, clunky and quite easy to distinguish- the "fried" vocals always shining through at points.
This is getting really dystopian now.
Truth, Ethics- everything is turned on its head. The world is taking quite a dark turn as we enter 2025.
the Ai music channels are already outdoing real people 😳 listeners are flocking to it like seagulls .. it's not looking good at all 😒
I get it! Singing is difficult and one cannot be expected to sing perfectly every time they get on stage, however, lip syncing and miming is fakery and in my opinion is wrong! Everyone seems to be doing it so I'll just buy the CD or download the song if I want to hear it. (By the way, I love Lara Fabian and her singing, but will refuse to pay big bucks to see her perform if it's nothing but Lip Sync and Miming!)
Uhm but she sings live most of the time, only in some russian shows with Igor Krutoy or in certain TV participations she was forced to do playback
About this show "From Lara with Love" it was a TV special that later came out as VHS, that's why it's specially edited I think she did several takes for the songs and they picked the best one but it's still live singing. It's not a studio recording at all.
@@damianvc31Nobody's doubting she's singing it live. The point is, pitch correction was involved and it was edited to make her sound better than she actually is. That's the problem. I remember watching her singing Adagio at the World Music Awards. She was phenomenal as always. But she didn't sound extremely polished compared to her Adagio singing on the Lara With Love show. It might be edited as well, I don't know but it doesn't sound like she's 100% perfect pitch on every single note. To be honest, I prefer her singing at the World Music Awards better. I like hearing her natural raw vocals vs an edited well polished version.
@@secrets.295 well this poster did lol
He talked about lip syncing which is false
Now if we talk about polishing vocals, I have yet to watch this analysis... it's true, in this show she sounds absolutely perfect, at a level that it's likely it has some post production
But that's normal for any of these professional releases. It's also done after the fact, the people watching that live did hear the original audio. So I don't know what all the fuss is about here. Probably all the recorded DVDs or BRays nowadays have this kind of polishing.
It's fine if you prefer the other performances, she did Adagio a lot of times and she sounds amazing every time. The one in From Lara with Love is my favorite, maybe because that post production, again it doesn't bother me nor I think it's negative to make a released performance sound as good as possible, within what's reasonable
Have you even watched this before commenting? In the video he said she sang this live and was very accurate with her pitch. And she sounded awesome.
Then Fil criticized a producer, that for no reason whatsoever decided to "improve" those vocals for the official release.
But they didn’t really improve anything, they just removed her expression.
So they destroyed all the hard work she put into his song.
How do come up with random accusations, that have nothing to do with what was said or shown? How can you blame her? She just sang live and was almost over the lines to begin with - without any corrections.
@@EllaSilentDragon now I'm curious about this video
Do you guys really think the producer did a bad job there? For me it sounds completely amazing...if anything the release enhanced her performance, and didn't remove any of the emotions, this concert is regarded as one of the best showings of expression from a vocalist ever. Specially in the already very famous covers of Je Suis Malade, Caruso and also in this song Broken Vow
But I'll watch to see this different perspective
I completely agree with you though it's absurd to put any blame on Lara even if you dislike the end result
Hmm.. i find it hard to believe an artist wouldn’t know their voice is going to be adjusted 🤔
I would say it's possible they don't know before hand, but when they listen back to the finished product, they'd have to know. And Lara is my absolute favorite.
@ I’m just thinking from the angle of, if I could really sing, and I think I’m there singing live and my vocal is being fed out to the world as it is, I’d be pissed to know someone was messing about with it.
I still want to see you show us How you teach Guitar Students some day
So, when are we actually going to hear what the artists think of these shenanigans and when are we going to hear from the producers as to why they keep doing it?
If singers put in their contracts "no computer singing for me" or a record company advertises their artists sing for real, might that help?
Singers don't put things in contracts; certainly the initial contract is pretty standard. Barbara Streisand was the one exception - she would not sign without artistic control and was willing to waive an advance.
The great majority of today's music on the radio and all musical media are very much agressive and exhausting on our hearing. Unlike a loud rock band of previous decades, it is not the loudness, but the impersonal feel of today's production that brings fatigue to my ears.
Not Lara!! NoooooOOOOOOOooooooo
I know how you feel. She's the best.
As much as I agree with the despicable cheating dimension to these pitch corrections, I’d like to give credit to the dozens of reaction UA-camrs who have been awed by Lara’s performances next to never made a single mention of pitch, and rather focused on what matters most in her performances : emotion. So yes pitch correcting this voice is ridiculous but in fine, it thankfully takes very little away from the original performance.
Pitch correction software has killed the art of bending the note.😢
Sometimes it seems to me many people just want to manage/control rather then "let it go".
Please do katy perry superbowl performance, i feel like the whole thing is pre recorded
Superbowl? 99.9% likely.
@@abc456f Renee Fleming is the only singer to do the national anthem live recently, but she pre-recorded it just in case...and had it been two degrees colder she would have requested the tape be used.
Every performance broadcasting on TV about opening games, Olympic, superbowl and other events are pre recorded since more than 40 years. Rule.
Fil can I ask a question? When you show us the side by side vocals data… why don’t you have the lines on the same level? Eg the C4 on the left is positioned one line higher than the right set of data? Just curious if there is a reason behind this…I think some people get confused when they first start watching (especially on a small device where it’s hard to see the text) bc they don’t think it’s lining up lol.
This video may now explain why I feel the way I do about Sarah Brightman performances. I was a fan but it got difficult to listen to her on "live" performances and concerts.
By the time you do pitch correction, timing correction, apply the compulsory song formula etc. you might as well use AI to produce everything from here on, run it through the 'perfection filter' and hand it to the masses. What a boring (robotic) future we await!
👍👍👍
It’s time that singers showing their teeth to stop this nonsense .
Fil, just curious why your left/right pitch grids don't line up - it's visually confusing (at least to me). For example, in this video I'm at 8:55 and the right pitch grid E4 lines up with the left pitch grid B3. Any reason why they are not aligned to be identical? Regardless, as always, another great analysis!
In germany we have a word for that: verschlimmbessern. To make something worse by trying to make it better. Seems thats all mainstream producers these days...
Good job as usual. Isnt it time to investigate the producers who carry out these deceptions
Another reason why I don’t pay any attention to current music. Besides the writing being the pits of the world, there’s a good chance the tracks have been digitally altered in post. I pretty much only listen to “old” music of the last century- jazz, blues, and rock up through the 90s before DAWs took over. Pitch correction will never be applied to Billie Holiday or Sara Vaughn because they’re not popular enough.
They'll come for Vaughn and Holliday if they decide to release any compilations or find unreleased masters. If they can pitch correct Mercury, they'll pitch correct the jazz divas. Its a shame you sit out modern music. Jazz fusion had quite the resurgence with folks like Christian Scott A'tunde Adjuah, Nubya Garcia, Elena Pinderhughes (who has toured with Herbie Hancock) and London Brew. You should check out Tiny Desk concerts (DakhaBrakha's is wild. Lisa O'Neill singing Old Note cripples me with tears, Willow Smith and her band are in the pocket) or KEXP live. Or KCRW live. Current music isn't the charts.
@@prestwickpioneer3474 Music that is not recorded in individual tracks is much harder to pitch-correct, so the older stuff might be safe.
@@Spo-Dee-O-Dee Ai music robot channels are already outdoing real people 😳 people are flocking to it 😒 im not sure if it is the novelty at this stage.. but it's not looking good .. we already see "what if led zep were a motown band" and these types of abominations 😳 getting 100ks clicks and thumbsups 😳
Keep bringing up crowd-shot footage and they'll start banning phones inside the concert halls.
I was at a Mark Lanegan gig (Scraps at Midnight tour) and his Musical Director back then, the mighty mighty Mike Johnson was supporting him, likely to save a ton of money. Mike hit a bum note during a vocal line and was visibly miffed about it but i was like "Live music in the raw!!" I didn't come to see a perfect rendition and mistakes are part and parcel. Infact on Deja Vu, 4+20 has a vocal glitch and CSNY w DT & GR released it anyway. Same with Kansas, theres vocal misses on their live lp.
I might be wrong : no use correcting to the tuning fork an a capela singing
Who cares ? The aliens ? The Supreme AI ?
But as shown in the recent past : they did. They do it each and every day
The pleasure of being evil ? I don't unserstand... The reason why...