From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Mon Feb 05 10:39:26 2007
Subject:Re: OT Superbowl Halftime Show OT OT OT

Hi,

That's why I said that the lead vocals might have been live. Perhaps "might have been" was a little to cynical a statement.

Don't get me wrong: Price is a consummate musician and performer, and both his vocals and performances certainly COULD HAVE been live. However, given: a) the short time span of the SB halftime show; b) the huge audience; and c) the inability to do any adjustments or make-ups; it wouldn't surprise me if the show's producers INSISTED on a certain degree of 'pre-performance,' just in case. I've run live outdoor shows with 1/10th the complexity of Prince's shows, only to have something go wrong with the setup during the show.

It's quite common for TV performances with a combination of live vocals and canned music, to be point where many audiences simply accept this as "normal." (Whether this is ethical or not is another issue entirely. Don't get me started down THAT road!) Add in the weather and the notoriously bad production quality in SB shows, and it just seems like it might have been judge to be the safest route. The bottom line of the SB halftime is ENTERTAINMENT, not musical performance.

The lack of sync on the guitar licks could have been from broadcast transmission issues, but I just find it hard to believe that someone would take Prince's guitar and route it through a satellite feed or something, which seems to be the only way to add in a delay. Unless the guitar licks had to go through the censors, too! ;-)

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com

At 01:06 PM 2/5/2007, donniemac88 wrote:
>Go check out the clips on Youtube. I could be totally wrong, but it
>sure looks to me like the vocals were live. For example, during Let's
>Go Crazy he walked out front to do a guitar solo. After the solo, he
>didn't get back to his mic in time to start singing the next line. So
>he just jumped in where he was and sang the rest of line. If the vocals
>had been pre-recorded, his voice probably would have come in whether he
>was at his mic or not.
>
>--- In CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Wahler wrote:
>>
>> From what I could see, his lead vocals *might* have been live.

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