Let's not forget that most of today's popular musicians cannot actually play their instruments well, or sing on pitch. They are creations of Pro Tools, Autotune, Melodyne, and endless audio processing software plug-ins. Without Pro Tools edits and pitch correction tweaks, they cannot play in time or sing on pitch, and so, what they produce live is of such low quality that no sane producer would try to record and release it.
Here is one of the most successful female singers of recent times, showcasing her impeccable pitch and powerful vocals 
: YouTube
(Make sure to listen to at least the first 30 seconds, to get the full effect.)
: YouTube(Make sure to listen to at least the first 30 seconds, to get the full effect.)
Here is Swift again, trying to harmonize with Stevie Nicks. Nicks seems to have no trouble singing on pitch, while Swift apparently couldn't find the right note with a flashlight, compass, map, and GPS receiver. Here we go: YouTube
-Gnobuddy
I see your point. Maybe it was a bad day.
I think the day will come when we will have songs created by bits of prerecorded sampled or synthesized voices. Hmmn if everything is synthesized I guess you just have to buy the synthesizer.
On perhaps the other extreme I was listening to Diana Krall live in Paris yesterday this time from a DVD/CD player but through the 8002 and card speakers and that was a really great recording. Vocals take prominence, then piano and the drums seemed to be close miked on some of the units, particularly the brushes, just guessing.
Each instrument was not equally loud like it would be in a live setting, I would imagine, but it was really enjoyable, maybe we just need the "High" instead of the "Fidelity" sometimes.
I thought so at first, but if you hunt around, you will find a lot of clips of Swift's weak, erratic, off-pitch vocals. For instance, she and Zac Efron were on an episode of the Ellen (Degeneres) show, and both sing together; Efron sings well, while the multi-millionaire singing sensation has the usual erratic pitch and weak voice.
There are other clips you can find of Swift where you can hear Autotune kicking in during live performances, but erratically, because Swift's vocals are often too weak to provide a clean signal for Autotune to process. You can also hear Autotune "hunting" rapidly back and forth between two notes a semitone apart, because Swift's pitch is so poor that Autotune couldn't even tell if she was aiming for a C, or a C#.
For those live shows, I don't know if they have Autotune hardware now, or whether Swift's vocals run through a laptop for Autotuning before going to the P.A. I do know that ART Electronics used to sell a small, inexpensive, Autotune-in-a-box mic preamp: ART Auto‑Tune Pre |
Apparently the ART autotune preamp is no longer sold, perhaps because, as Taylor Swift's live clips attest, on-the-fly pitch correction is a dangerous and error-prone gamble:
ART Pro Audio Autotune Preamp - Single Channel - Long & McQuade Musical Instruments
I'm sorry to say, that day came quite a while ago. Ever hear of Hatsune Miku? No? Take a look/listen:
YouTube
"She" does not exist, but has tens of thousands of fans in several countries, who pay actual money, buy actual tickets, go to her "live" concerts, and cheer enthusiastically for their non-existent idol.
Hatsune Miku is the result of combining Yamaha Corp's Vocaloid software with animated film clips of an Anime-type character, a twirling girl with big eyes and long green hair. Feed the vocal line (as MIDI data, perhaps?) to Vocaloid, and it spits out the chipmunk-warble that passes for Hatsune Miku's voice.
At "her" live concerts, actual musicians play the instruments, while images of the non-existent star are projected onto an angled, nearly transparent screen for the audience to stare at with love and admiration.
More Hatsune Miku "songs" here: YouTube
Indeed! I would much rather hear Neil Finn and the rest of Crowded House singing "Fall At Your Feet" on a 1950's AM radio, than Taylor Swift in full HD audio through the best audio system money can buy...
-Gnobuddy
My ears hurt now. So does my head.
Whoever gave that singer a microphone should be sued for cruel and unusual punishment of the audience.
-Gnobuddy
It's bad enough that the Emperor has no clothes. But somehow we've gone past even that sad milestone, and arrived at the point where many of us have actually stopped even caring that the Emperor has no clothes.
A few years ago, I read a fascinating (to me) book called "Perfecting Sound Forever" ( Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music: Greg Milner: 9780865479388: Books - Amazon.ca ).
The book takes a detailed and comprehensive look at the long history of tinkering with recorded sound, a process which seems to have begun not long after Edison's first tin-foil recording was made, but which kicked into high gear with the arrival of the first high quality reel-to-reel tape recorders near the end of WWII. Not quite "a century or two" ago, but over 70 years ago, now.
During and after WWII, early audio edits were made with tape splicing to clean up radio programs before they were broadcast. That relatively minor tinkering was quickly followed by tricks such as the addition of fake laughter from a non-existent audience.
So by 1950, audiences were already listening to the manufactured sound of "performances" which had never actually occurred.
Nearly four decades later, Pro Tools and Autotune took the tweaking to an entirely different level, making it possible to construct entire zombie music performances stitched and stapled together from scraps. Popular music had turned into an auditory version of H.G. Well's "The Island of Doctor Moreau", a land filled with deformed, cobbled-together, soulless monsters, re-animated into some sort of semblance of life.
"Perfecting Sound Forever" has the inevitable low notes (such as the usual superstitious dislike combined with technical ignorance of digital audio and the CD format), but also a lot of high notes, so I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Unfortunately, I lost my copy a few years ago.
-Gnobuddy
Nostalgia's not what it used to be
I listened to the Taylor Swift YouTube clips (first few seconds only) after listening to Oxford Camerata singing Orlando Gibbons.
Was pop music better in my youth? 1968 was the year I re-tuned my bakelite valve radio from Radio One to Radio Three.
YouTube
and
YouTube
Judith Durham is singing just a third down (I estimate - anyone with a better one?) after 45 years - that's a good voice. In the earlier performance some apparent mis-tunings are actually slight portamento, she gets there before moving on.
Listening to more live performances, I can hear the melody, a bass part (easy), and a middle part. Can anyone tell if there are two middle parts?
Andy
I listened to the Taylor Swift YouTube clips (first few seconds only) after listening to Oxford Camerata singing Orlando Gibbons.
Was pop music better in my youth? 1968 was the year I re-tuned my bakelite valve radio from Radio One to Radio Three.
YouTube
and
YouTube
Judith Durham is singing just a third down (I estimate - anyone with a better one?) after 45 years - that's a good voice. In the earlier performance some apparent mis-tunings are actually slight portamento, she gets there before moving on.
Listening to more live performances, I can hear the melody, a bass part (easy), and a middle part. Can anyone tell if there are two middle parts?
Andy
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And this sums the whole concept problem with stereo as we know it. To close and your timing (re other instruments in the orchestra) and timbre (too much direct sound, no hf damping due to distance) is messed up. Too far and it sound to hollow/everything to far away.
This is a system architecture problem that 0,1% lower 3rd distorsion or a speaker doing +/-1,5 dB 20-20k will not fix. It's so much more fundamental and needs a whole new take on record/reproduce strategy in the front end interfaces (that would be air->electric, electric->air, the air side structure being the challenge) to solve. The lack of "center" makes the sound waves that produce the phantom center image, in a 2 speaker system, reveal itself - the waves should come straight towards your head for a source in front of you - in "stereo" they don't. It's OK but not good enough for a truly believable experience.
There - finally got to unburden my heart
//
PS: Agree with that the Mics need to go out where the listener sits... now then?
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Nimbus use(d?) a single point, 3-microphone system to record for ambisonics. The point was generally about row three, high above the conductors frenetic movements! It produced a believable stereo image, with depth. By contrast one DG recording had all the orchestra hanging off the living room wall.
BBC Four now on series record, just in case; thanks for the reminder.
I already got to share some of my experiences and a perspective on audio reproduction when I was baited in another thread:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/317976-amplifier-sound-force-26.html#post5388307
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/317976-amplifier-sound-force-23.html#post5387555
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/317976-amplifier-sound-force-26.html#post5388307
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/317976-amplifier-sound-force-23.html#post5387555
I cannot believe my eyes. So how to reproduce Hatsune Miku? Do they have a dedicated multimedia system do do this?