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Post by webm@ster on May 2, 2007 10:27:32 GMT -5
Debuting in the '60s, early synths didn't feature many sounds and what sounds they did offer sounded almost universally like the instrumental version of "Funkytown." Early synth hits included the terrifying theme song to the equally-at-times terrifying British TV series, Dr. Who (that scarf scares me - what normal adult wears a scarf all the time?), as well as The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever," which featured a Mellotron. Drug addled music and horrifying theme songs - we were off to a good start. Later, artists like Brian Eno and Jeff Lynne would put synths to use extensively in their music, with mixed results. When Eno got together with David Bowie, it was kind of like two wrongs making a right or, to put it another way, two weirdos making even weirder music. And not that I dislike either of those artists - they've definitely had their moments. But for every "Cindy Tells Me" or "Sound and Vision," there are a dozen "Ali Click"s or "DJ"s. Fortunately, around this time, some other synth-minded people were coming into their own. Led by Gary Newman, who for all we know wrote the song "Cars" and then took a flying leap off the planet and returned to a distant galaxy far away where really over-sized sunglasses are perpetually in style, bands like Depeche Mode, The Buggles, and M were beginning to push synths into the mainstream. At first, the music was a tad on the dark side, with even peppy tunes like Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" sounding at least somewhat like they might also double as the score to a movie about a killer clown. All of that changed when the '80s came about and one could not be taken seriously without a synth. Synth music was to '80s music as cilantro is to Emeril's cooking. Around this time, you also started to see computer-enhanced or modified vocals, although they were typically so processed that their end result was passed off as belonging to a robot, i.e. Robin Gibb's 1984 masterpiece, "Robot." Computer-modified vocals would eventually improve, however, and would later be responsible for the entire careers of Radiohead, Cher, Oasis, and Paris Hilton. Radiohead uses it to make their songs between 20-70% less accessible, Cher uses it for, well, you know, Paris's album was probably at least 98% computer generated, and Oasis uses it because Liam Gallagher actually accidentally smoked his vocal chords back in 1997 and now talks like Raze from Underworld. Today, computers are used on just about every song released, to some extent. Certainly they've revolutionized the recording studio, where they assist in the mixing process, display a constant read-out of volume levels while recording, or slap on some headphones and singing a Paris Hilton song. You can't really get a song made without them these days. www.ugo.com/ugo/html/article/?id=17243§ionId=2 |
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MadFerIt2005
Oasis Roadie
The canuck who talks like a brit, guess you could call me a brigger.
Posts: 119
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Post by MadFerIt2005 on May 2, 2007 11:13:43 GMT -5
I would be inclined to believe this if I hadn't seen videos of Liam in the studio for Don't Believe The Truth. He really sounded amazing, and it's really odd that he's that good in a studio and his vocals are so bad live.. I think it's the volume of his voice, because he tries too hard to be loud/powerful singing live when his voice can't handle it.. In the studio though you tone down the volume bigtime and focus strictly on the vocal quality.
I will agree with one thing though.. It was 1997 when his voice start changing bigtime during live performances. When you go back and listen to 1996 bootlegs, and then a 1997 one the difference is really drastic. What the heck happened in that year?
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Post by nyr401994 on May 2, 2007 13:22:47 GMT -5
if they used computer modified vocals, liam would sound decent live these days. but his voice has been shot since 97-98. i believe it about radiohead too... you'd lose your voice too after whining like a little bitch for over a decade.
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Post by TheEXPERIENCE on May 2, 2007 14:46:39 GMT -5
There is no doubt they clean up Liam's vocals on the albums...You ever notice how you don't hear the raspiness from his voice on the studio version of songs? Well that's all thanks to a computer. I, myself am a producer and can tell almost immediately if a vocal has been edited and almost every Liam sung song post-2000 has been cleaned up so he sounds somewhat recognizable. Back in the early days of DM and WTSMG, there was no need for any of that. The only times I can remember his vocals being altered were during smalls things like the bridge in Whatever and the chorus in Columbia. I mean it's really nothing to be too ashamed of today considered it's hard to find any vocalist who doesn't have their vocals digitally enhanced.
I also think the other reason his voice is always shit in concert is cause he's either drunk, stoned, or burnt out. The best we could hope is his voice will return to how it was in 2000, but I doubt it ever will unless he takes some major fucking steps like quit smoking (which we know he'll never do)
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2007 21:53:18 GMT -5
Yeah, it's really no surprise. Liam does sound good in the studio, but like morningsupernova said they gotta clean up some of the roughness.
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Post by vespa on May 3, 2007 8:42:26 GMT -5
everything recorded in a studio is cleaned up to some extent
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Post by 10 - Nick McCabe on May 3, 2007 22:13:06 GMT -5
Yeah, it's really no surprise. Liam does sound good in the studio, but like morningsupernova said they gotta clean up some of the roughness. Stupid question but must say, how do you clean the roughness in a voice? |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2007 23:01:36 GMT -5
Yeah, it's really no surprise. Liam does sound good in the studio, but like morningsupernova said they gotta clean up some of the roughness. Stupid question but must say, how do you clean the roughness in a voice? Got no fuckin' clue whatsoever.  |
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Post by TheEXPERIENCE on May 4, 2007 13:57:21 GMT -5
Yeah, it's really no surprise. Liam does sound good in the studio, but like morningsupernova said they gotta clean up some of the roughness. Stupid question but must say, how do you clean the roughness in a voice? After he records his vocals, the producer will run it through a computer and add/take away what he wants from it. Meaning he can add alot of echo effect which will take alot of the raspiness away or a number of other different effects. You can alter the treble coming through, the bass, etc... |
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Post by Clint on May 12, 2007 23:26:05 GMT -5
there are very complex computer programs that allow you to make vocals however you want them to be
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Post by LDD- Angelic Child on May 13, 2007 8:02:40 GMT -5
Just like in the Revolver sessions John Lennon would tell the sound engineer 'today i want to sound like i'm on the moon'
..anything can be done
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Post by NoelandMeMay29 on May 13, 2007 10:19:51 GMT -5
I think the key to Liams voice live now are two things. He needs rest between shows. I saw him in Atlanta in 2005 after a gig in Houston was cancelled b/c of a Hurricane. That gave him about 5-6 days rest and the atlanta show he sounded great. Also he needs to let the amps take the loudness and stop screaming the lyrics. If you look at the older shows he wasn't bent in as much and didn't scream the lyrics like he does now. He basically screams songs even 'wonderwall'. I now start to realize why that is played more electric than acoustic.
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Post by ToneBender on May 14, 2007 18:48:51 GMT -5
Folks, I don't mean to burst any bubbles here but computers don't really have the capacity to get rid of raspiness in vocals the way that you think they do. The way that Liam's voice is processed in the middle eight of Whatever is that it's overdriven. This could've been done through a guitar amp, a mic pre-amp, a sans amp or any number of different processors. This has been going on for 50 years. The reason Liam sounds better in the studio versus live is the following:
1. Better microphones - Liam and co. will probably spend more time than you can imagine picking out the appropriate microphone for his voice for use in certain songs. Each microphone has a different tonal and timbral quality that is going to greatly affect the sound of his voice.
2. Better pre-amps - This is what really brings the level of the mic up to line level. Again, this will have a significant affect on the tonal and timbral quality of Liam's voice.
3. Better monitoring - When Liam can actually hear himself, he doesn't have to strain his voice as much. He will sing loudly mind you (there are a number of quotes that can attest to that), but won't be employing the same manner he would in a live show. To get you an idea of how monitoring can affect Liam's voice check out the Radio Aid recordings of Wonderwall and Songbird and the live version from irish tv of GGTIA that he did with Gem. I don't remember the show but he was wearing white pants...very odd.
4. Analog Tape - In many stages of the recording process (vocals included), Oasis uses analog tape. When pushed, analog tape has a very musical sounding compresssion and overdrive that tends to sweeten sound. The term "warm" would be appropriate...
5. Various other outboard processing (Limiters, compressors, reverbs, etc.) - Again, the band uses a significant amount of outboard processing that has been in use for about 40 years+. Noel purchased the board that "Dark Side of the Moon" was recorded on if I'm not mistaken. Also, some of the stuff they may track with includes 1176 (either Urei or Purple Audio) and the Teletronix LA-2A. All of these are responsible for Liam's vocal sound.
6. With the exception of cut and paste editing and pitch correction (not even remotely noticeable on Liam's vocals if he would even allow it to begin with), most computer processing in use for Oasis' music are digital emulations of previously existing hardware limiters, compressors, delays, reverbs, etc. Often, these are used simply because most people can't afford 10 Fairchild 660s which can cost upwards of $25000 each. Instead, they've got UAD-1, Bomb Factory and URS emulations which all sound similar to the original but all of their own sonic quality.
Finally, most live Oasis recordings you hear are recorded digitally and aren't given even half of the attention most studio releases are for recording, mixing, etc. That's not to say that Liam's voice is great or even close to it live, but that is a better exlpanation than just saying that Liam's voice is fixed on a computer. More likely than not, Liam's voice has seen very little digital processing save the cut and paste job on Wonderwall for FTM.
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Post by BasementGuitarist on May 15, 2007 11:00:33 GMT -5
I think the volume of his voice/ability to hear himself on stage plays a big part in it too. Compare other songs the band plays live with Songbird. They go all-acoustic for it, rather than the loud distortion sound, and Liam's vocals are always spot on. If he wasn't straining so much on other songs to try and be louder, he would sound fine. I think this is evidenced when listening to just about any live rendition of Songbird.
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Post by Heynow2005 on May 15, 2007 13:19:30 GMT -5
Liam sings in the studio recordings...when performing live he shouts quite alot of the songs which doesnt help his voice!!
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Post by TheEXPERIENCE on May 15, 2007 13:38:53 GMT -5
Something interesting to think about...In Stop Crying Your Heart Out, Liam's voice sounds as close to 1997 as I think he's come post-Be Here Now. Yet later on that album, Liam's voice is back to being really raspy on It's Probably All In the Mind. Coincidence? It makes sense that maybe he was "singing" SCYHO and screaming on IPAITM, but I'm not sure that's the reason. His vocals on SCYHO are very let's call it sugarcoated...There's a ton of echo and delay, and once again that raspiness is not there. I honestly don't know why but I don't think it's pure coincidence. I really believe Noel just doctored his voice on that album to fit each particular song. However since that stuff is usually up to the producer and considering Noel's declared he's done producing, who knows how Liam will sound on the next one...Although Dave Sardy did a decent job on DBTT
And to the person who claims that computers can't do as much as we think to his voice, I couldn't disagree more. As a producer, I don't have top of the line equipment or software, but it's beyond amazing just how much I can alter someones voice through my software. And considering how Oasis pretty much has money growing out of their ass, I'm sure they have state of the art software and mic's...so who knows how much more they're capable of as opposed to someone like myself who can do it with older software and a less expensive studio. As soon as I started producing, I lost all respect for so many aspects of the music industry...And people wonder why talentless hacks like freaking Paris Hilton can make an album
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Post by rdwng30 on May 15, 2007 16:04:15 GMT -5
i really don't think that they alter liams voice that much, on the other mentioned artists i could easily have picked it up, but on DBTT liams voice doesn't sound altered, except for some intentional effects for the song, but i really don't think they need to clean it up because he sounds fine live, and singing in a studio is a ton different from singing in a concert.
the best supporting evidence of this is songbird...sounds perfect live and sounds the same as in the studio
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Post by ToneBender on May 15, 2007 18:49:12 GMT -5
Listen, there's a difference between pitch correction and processing...You seem to think that the processing is done to hide defects of his voice. If anything, Liam's vocals have been enhanced on some tracks to accentuate the nasally aspect of his delivery (love like a bomb, the meaning of soul (5 shots and an sm7b, need i say more?) I'm not denying that computers can do the things you think, but short of pitch correction (see varispeed on tape machines) and cutting and pasting (known as "comping", also done on tape machines) every single thing done digitally on OASIS recordings can be done with outboard gear. As I recall, the only track done on Pro Tools on SOTSOG was Sunday Morning Call. In 2002, Noel was using 888's in the studio which would be PT in the 5.0 era. He said in an interview that he only recently used new PT software and was amazed at the differences. There's plenty a computer can do, but it's not being used on Liam the way you think it is.
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Post by Beady’s Here Now on May 17, 2007 20:33:44 GMT -5
EVERY fuckin major artist gets help from a computer for studio albums.
why the hell do you think theres a difference between Live CDs and Studio CDs?
The human voice is not perfect. and thus its gonna be less popular to hear those imperfections, so a computer is used to clean it up. nothing wrong with that.
Why do you think The View sound so good? they are fuckin horrible live! (and that to me is what i dont like, bc they seem more like a fake band relying on computers -- Oasis are not though)
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Post by jilliam on May 20, 2007 2:45:58 GMT -5
i believe it about radiohead too... you'd lose your voice too after whining like a little bitch for over a decade. hahahahaha, I gotta go give my radiohead freind a lashing on this new found evidence.  |
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Post by ToneBender on May 20, 2007 7:42:20 GMT -5
Thom Yorke's voice isn't tuned though..It's edited for musical purposes..Not quite "This vocal is out of tune, let's tune it", more of a "how can we screw up his voice as much as possible and have it remain very musical?"..
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Post by lionsden® on May 20, 2007 13:02:28 GMT -5
i believe it about radiohead too... you'd lose your voice too after whining like a little bitch for over a decade. lol ;D |
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Nov 4, 2024 5:04:30 GMT -5