Jazz vocalists which may not be as real as we think/imagine


Sure we could include all genres of vocalists,  but lets focus on jazz performers,,for instance , take Diana Krall. 
I have a  pile of cds that i do not listen to, old rock,,, 2 are my wife's she picked up as gifts, and never listened.
So I figured maybe I can use DK's as a  test reference recording.
Her 1999 and 2001, both seem to my ears her voice is somehow ~~tweeked~~ laid out with modern aids such as EQ's and such.
My Q is , can we really consider DK's voice to be The Real Deal,,, or a  perhaps a toch of  ~ The Fake if not perhaps, bordering on, fraud. 
I really can not use her cds in my testing of new tweeks, mods, , Her voice comes across wayyyy too warm = Colored = a nono for my ears. 
I am after pure cold frigid, icy clean mountain spring water. 
Anyway, justa  random thought,, what say ye? Have you noticed this quirk among other jazz performers such as Sophie Milman, which btw , i do use in  my YT vid uploads of testing reference on tweeks/mods/upgrades. 
Her voice is at least somewhat more~~ a  natural~, Just barely,,had her engineers gonea  tad too far in tweeking, I may have to  also disreagrd her cds. 
Sure you might object and claim all recordings post 1985, have these intrusions of tweeking /EQing the voice, as a  makeover. 
I don't know, maybe in the past 20 yrs things have gotten out of hand. 
So cast your vote, is DK's voice real deal,, or a  tad fake?
Can she perform unpluged as she does on high tech studio records?
mozartfan

Showing 5 responses by cd318

@mozartfan,

This is a fascinating subject. No matter how far you go back into the earliest days of recording you invariably find the engineers looking for some way to enhance their recordings.

Even those renowned Maria Callas recordings from the early 50s weren’t as honest as we’d like to think. Different venues, different microphones, different positions, different singing styles with miles and miles of tape used.

Eventually the best takes were very carefully selected to finally create an album such as highly regarded Tosca recorded in Milan back in 1953.

I’m getting the impression that vocal honesty and integrity were never the intention in recording. Only some kind of striving towards an imagined perfection as far as the vocalist’s talents and the technology of the time would allow.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tosca_(1953_EMI_recording)

mozartfan,

Vocal manipulation/enhancement began almost as soon as recording did. It’s now almost impossible to find a ’naked’ flat recording of the human voice in popular music.

Every single vocal performance on record has been enhanced to some degree or another. Almost anyone you can think of would sound different (less impressive) if they stood before you and sang or spoke.

Originally there was echo, double tracking, reverb etc but now there’s zillions of effects available digitally. Yet despite all of these ’advances’ some of the most lifelike vocal performances ever recorded come from the very earliest days.

The 1950/60s in particular featured some fabulous vocal recordings from the likes of Sinatra, Nat Cole, Peggy Lee etc. Truly great recordings no doubt but many of them benefitted from the acoustics ( huge natural echo chamber) of the Capitol Studios in LA.

’One of Capitol Studios most unusual and coveted assets are the eight subterranean echo chambers. Located 30 feet underground, the trapezoidal rooms can be accessed by the studios and mastering rooms to add rich reverberation to a vocal. Each of the chambers has thick concrete walls and ceilings. Sound from the studio is sent to speakers in the echo chambers, which is then picked up by microphones and returned to the recording media. With speakers on one side and microphones on the other, the chambers can provide reverberation lasting up to 5 seconds.’

Dare we suggest that Frank, Nat and Peggy might not sound so good elsewhere?

As for Diana Krall, she isn’t competing with them. She only has to be good enough for today, and that she obviously is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Studios
@edcyn,

Wow, that is something! The Capitol Records Building has just got to be one of the most beautiful iconic man made structures in the world.

I hope it lasts forever.


@mozartfan,

I bet I love that record as much as you, but you do know that's it's drenched in echo and reverb?  Patsy Cline would not sound anything like that if she was singing live in front of us. Definitely not if she was recording it today.

Sadly the era of such 'wet' recordings has long passed by. Nowadays a more 'dry' sound is preferred, and I'm guessing because it's easier to reproduce live in concert.

Fans also seem prefer a more dry modern sound, although some like k.d. lang and Lana Del Rey still seem to try to get that vintage sound on some of their recordings.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable in the subject could help us out. 

https://youtu.be/MbnrdCS57d0

https://musicianshq.com/what-is-the-difference-between-reverb-echo-and-delay/
I think it's generally agreed that pop music singers are not the be-all end-all in vocal performance. In fact some of them are hardly singers at all, nor would claim to be. Not everyone can be a Robert Plant, Josh Groban, Ella Fitzgerald, Doris Day, or a Karen Carpenter etc.

Opera singers on the other hand have to perform live on stage without amplification or vocal enhancements in front of demanding audiences whilst performing often difficult repertoire.

Folk/ country singers also may often sing 'naked' in front of live audiences (not so much currently) accompanied only by a guitar.

For marketing reasons record companies (and artists) seek to employ producers like Rick Rubin and Mark Ronson who have that golden touch which can turn albums into big sellers. 
 
They've both made some great records but I'd say that vocal fidelity was never the main concern of theirs. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if even artists like Andrea Bocelli didn't get the odd bit of help on his records.

It's just the way it is today, and probably always has been.
@mozartfan,

’And btw the RS had onlya few good songs, all written by the creative and talented Brian Jones, , then again , drugs didn’t hurt that process.
To me drug induced music should be canceled. I never listen to rock any longer.’

Agree with you about Brian Jones. Once he was kicked out the Stones lost a lot of texture to their sound and gradually became a good Rolling Stones tribute band.

Can’t agree about the drugs though. Without pot and LSD the 1960s would have sounded entirely different. Lord knows what drugs the kids are all using today.


’Should all voice manipulation gadets be banned, outlawed from any/every record, no matter what genre,’

’So yeah, thats my beef, studio tech geeks gone wild with modern gadgets, giving us what is not really The Real Deal.’


Partially agree. It would be nice to have more recordings with natural life-like recordings. However I’ve read that it’s the absolute norm to avoid flat recordings.

At the very least a dose of compression is considered mandatory to any recording/radio TV broadcast. Cinema trailers often tend to overdose on it.

It would appear also that many vocalists are insecure of their talents and specifically choose studios, producers, effects etc to get an idealised sounding version of themselves. One that they hope the public will buy into.

In any case we’re now in the high speed social media age where the wish to improve upon nature is at its greatest. This human desire was probably was always there but now we have many means of enabling it.

Image enhancement seems to be incredibly important today and thus the natural look / sound seems unsophisticated and decidedly out of fashion.