How is lip-synching handled in concert, I can imagine during a world tour an artiste might perfer to lip-synch at least some of the time to protect their lungs. Wiki seems to think it happens all the time.
I’m not sure what the question is - they play the recorded vocals over the PA while the “artist” pretends to sing.
I think what they are asking is how do they play recorded vocals over presumably live instrument playing? Or is the entire performance faked?
Sorry, not the most shining example of drafting a question. What I mean, is how often do performers at a concert lip-synch. And when do they decide to lip synch? Wiki seems to suggest that it is done when there is a difficult and strenous dance number. I can think of situations as well, during a world tour a a singer might like to lip synch at times, to protect their voices for instance.
Ah ok. I think if they were using canned vocals there would also be a backing track that the live instruments play along with, so that everything stays in time. See, for example, Ashlee Simpson’s embarrassing mistake on Saturday Night Live.
I’ve been at a ton of concerts where there’s a problem with equipment at some point or another. If they were lip synching, it would be obvious to me at that time. The fact that I’ve never seen any lip synching during those situations leads me to believe it doesn’t happen all that often.
Example: George Clinton at Club Nokia the other day … this is a brand-new club. It just went up a few months ago. Therefore, it should have everything perfect and up to spec, etc., right? Well, GC and Parliament Funkadelic, P-Funk, family, friends, etc., is a lot of power requirement. They have like 15 microphones, several guitars and keyboards, tons of amps on stage.
Club Nokia couldn’t provide enough power to keep everything running the whole night. A mic would cut out once in a while, and although you could see the singer was still singing, the voice was cutting on and off as the power to the mic came and went. Someone else hands him a mic, and he’s able to sing steady in to it. The rest of the music was still playing.
On this video, which talks about the Ashlee Simpson sync slipup…
The guy says that something similar to this happens in many high-end acts.
A musician like George Clinton would never stoop to lip syncing. It would be hard to imagine any band that took themselves seriously using pre-recorded tracks. The ones who use it are pop-singers such as Britney Spears.
In my opinion it is used for two reasons:
- During aerobic dance routines like AK84 mentions, where it would not be practical to sing and breath properly, or
- Because the singer can’t sing. In this case the singer would still be miked and sing along with the recorded track. The result is that mistakes are less obvious and the singing sounds more “full”. This was the case with Ashlee Simpson.
As for saving the vocal chords during a “world-tour,” professional singers generally don’t have a problem putting on a show almost every night. Occasionally you will hear about a singer getting strained vocal chords, at which point a self-respecting artist will cancel a few dates.
Something happened with Eminem’s vocal track when he was here in Toronto a few years ago. Something about the vocal track either skipping ahead or cutting out completely. I don’t actually remember.
From the time I was working in the theatre, I do remember times when “vocal enhancement” was used. In two cases in particular, one was because the choreography was so demanding that it made it near impossible to sing properly because the performers were too out of breath. They were in fact singing, but their mikes were turned down a bit in the mix and pre-recorded vox tracks were played additionally to bolster their performances. In the other case, it’s because quite honestly the female lead was lousy. She was inconsistent and stage fright made her awful. So without her knowledge they turned down her mike and used a pre-recorded rehearsal tape of her voice. Edit: this example was from community theatre, the former was from a musical in NY.
I think that reliable information will be hard to find for the obvious reason that lip-synching is viewed as underhanded and no honest comprehensive survey would or could be done.
Extrapolating from the incidents where people have been caught out, I think that it may be comparatively common in the type of music which is more a show than a musical performance. The type of thing with total choreography of the whole performance, costumes, dancing, pretty boys and girls type of thing.
I can’t think of anyone whose concerts basically comprise simply playing music with no strong emphasis on how the performance looks who has been caught out lip-synching. Someone may be able to think of a counter example. And the lines between the two sorts of concerts I have identified are no doubt not clear cut.
From a “how is it done” perspective:
Many bands and stage shows now use a click track to help everyone stay in time. This has been assisted by the increasing use of in-ear monitors for performers. This ensures that the click track cannot bleed to the audience, and allows additional cues to be used. I heard the sound man for Delirious! (a UK christian band) say that by using in-ear monitors and soundshields for the drums, the band band members can talk to each other with normal voices while performing.
Where a performer requires vocal assistance, the vocal assists are recorded with the click track, and synchronized with the cues. This means that the live and recorded material will stay in sync. Sometimes the assist will only be for a short period. In 2008, it was revealed that Connie Fisher (the winner of a british reality tv show to become Maria in the revival of The Sound Of Music) was getting a top notes assist when her voice was unable to cope with the strain. In that case, the sound engineer would fade out the mike and fade in the recording at the appropriate point (stage shows always use a tight click track for timing purposes). So most of the time it was the singer, just occasionally, the recording came in.
Of course, in the old days, it would be the fat girl from the chorus who could really sing standing in the wings to cover for the pretty diva on stage who couldn’t sing the part. 
Si
Lip-synching isn’t always black & white and many performers blur the line while doing it. Many have a vocal track playing while at the same time they sing live and someone at a mixing board blends the two together. Sometimes all you’ll hear is the recorded track playing cause they have turned the mic level down so much. Even when doing this the performer can still claim they sing live every time.
I’m sure old pros like McCartney, Elton John, Billy Joel, Celine Dion, etc. are 100% singing for all of their concerts.
Others like Britney, Ashley Simpson, etc. probably rely heavily on the recorded track and who knows how much of their live voice you’re getting?
Apparently synching has been taken to a new level. I’ve read that Miley Cyrus uses a double during some of her more difficult dance routines on stage.
Any cite?
No cite, but I remember reading that the “double” was used very briefly (and not necessarily during a tough dance sequence,) so that Miley could run backstage and change outfits.
Anyone who would pay to see a lip-synching concert isn’t a fan of music. If dancing live is more important than singing live, then you’re in the wrong industry.
I’ve been to a good share of Weird Al concerts and while Al doesn’t lip synch, nor do any of his band members PRETEND to play (there was a concert I was at where he totally lost his voice, and another show where the wireless guitar battery went out), he does use backing harmony vocal tracks for some songs (such as Since You’ve Been Gone), and some pre-recorded loops and sound effects are used along with the live stuff. Because of this, he can’t defer from the pre-arranged set.
The best REAL live shows to see are with bands who do a different setlist every night (Pearl Jam, They Might Be Giants, The Decemberists etc)…since they don’t rely on technical assistance to perform, they can personalize and improvise each show to cater to that specific audience.
But some music just can’t be performed as well live as it can in the studio. For example, if there is some kind of voice-altering effect going on or if there are very extensive synthesis effects, it just doesn’t sound right. Granted, some of this *is *because the singer isn’t able to sing as well as some others, but I wouldn’t have a big problem with a concert that was partially or wholly lip-synched. I don’t usually go to concerts, though.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
It is about audience expectations. Audiences now tend to want a live performance to sound just like the recorded one.
Back when I was attending concerts, you expected it to sound different – a changed tempo, a different lyric, a variation on the solo. The live performer interpreted the songs, and if it sounded just like the record, people felt disappointed (they could listen to the record any time).
I can’t think of any concert back in the 70s that was lip synched simply because it was supposed to sound different from the record. The only group that used tape at all was Pink Floyd, and that was for effects, not for the vocals.
I still prefer the spontaneity of a live concert to a standardized show. I don’t expect the performer to dance at all; if I did, I’d go to the ballet. I want to hear renditions of the songs that show something I wouldn’t find if I played the CD.
That was one of the main reasons the Beatles gave up on performing concerts. They said they couldn’t perform their newer music outside of the studio.
I don’t think that’s too uncommon during quick change scenes or “fantasy montage” stuff and I don’t think it’s intended to fool the audience. I’ve seen it done for a kids production of “The Ugly Duckling” that we took my goddaughter to. Some ballerina took the ugly ducklings place while they were changing the performer into the swan outfit. And I think I’ve seen if for some Rogers and Hammerstein thing that had some dream sequence ballet bit.
The most pointless lip-synching I ever saw was in Paris at the Moulin Rouge.
Let me set the scene:
Bascially, they have Vegas-style shows with topless dance girls and these really cheesy song-and-dance numbers that looked like they got their plots from really, really BAD romance novels, like handsome Pharaoh must go rescue hot Isis-like chick from Evil Snake Lady or something. It just gave them excuses to prance around in fabulous gold outfits with the women’s nipples showing. Evil Snake Lady swam around a pool with a live boa constrictor that was trying to escape for fear of drowning and the guy tried really hard not to look gay (most of the time he had a gold lame bolero jacket with no shirt, pink pantaloons, and a turquoise, silk turban. For comparisson, this is one of his more manly outfits.).
IIRC, almost all the songs were in English. All the performers had those little microphones attached to the side of their heads. The Female Voice we heard was the same voice the whole time, even though there were three or four female leads that night. When the performers were close enough to you, you could hear that they really were singing, but their voices were absolutely NOT the ones we were hearing through the speakers. Three of the women had noticeable, heavy accents, one was very, very Russian-sounding, the voice over the speakers did not have a noticeable accent, and certainly not a Russian one.
Props to Pink Pants though! He sang his little heart out and his voice powerful enough that you could sometimes hear him independently of the voice coming through the PA system. Decent voice too. Again, not the one coming through over the speakers and he had only a slight accent.
Sometimes the guys were doing handsprings, so okay, I don’t expect them to sing when they do that, but when Pink Pants and Leading Lady are standing there singing a duet, you kind of think that maybe there would be a bit more live singing.
I couldn’t figure out why anyone would even bother with the pretense of singing. What the hell was the point? Why not just say “this is a dance show!” and maybe toss in a couple musical acts to go along with the acrobats and juggler. Like one of the scenes had two half-naked women as Siamese twins bouncing around the stage. Really, no one was there to hear them sing.
It would be as if Circque du Soleil acrobats started mouthing the words the Celine Dion tunes. Why the hell would they do that?