"Iain Churches" wrote in message
news

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 18:46:18 +0300, "Iain Churches"
wrote:

Not that the two artists are in any other way similar (except their
professionalism, of course) but Bing Crosby also liked to "sit in
with the band", not facing them as one would expect a singer to
do, but actually "sit in". For an engineer this creates all kind of
problems. But he needed no foldback and no retakes either:-)


Who needs foldback when you can do it in one take? When you have a
band, though, as long as the conductor has foldback on a headphone you
have it covered. Either that or have him facing the booth window so
you can wave at him.


Vocalists find it ifficult to manage without foldback even on concert
performances. It really has nothing to do with the number of takes, but
they need audio cues, to hear their own intonation and the tempo
and pitch of the track.

Concert foldback balancing is quite a skill, much in demand. The
foldback balance usually bears no resemblance to the concert balance
itself.

Very very few singers can provide a one-take performance (even after
extensive rehearsal) In concerts, with the visual reference, slight
blemishes
in intonation and timing go largely unnoticed, but in recording they stick
out like sore thumbs. Hnce the needs for overdubbing, foldback and
multiple takes.

As recording technique has evolved, the standard of performance
has deteriorated probably directly in proportion. There is no need
to be able to "sing it in one" any more

At least nowaday using IEM you don't have the foldback wedge speakers
muddying the vocal channel if the vocalist doesn't like to get up close and
make love to the mic. I agree about the loss of 'sing it in one' and even
worse the use chorusing and looping in a song just makes it more artificial
sounding. There used to be a real pride and a measure of the musicians
quality to take it in one.


"Musical bricklaying" is here to stay for most forms of popular music:-)

Iain