Posted by David McCall on 12/04/06 15:46

I have no more problem with the singers being prerecorded
than I do with the musicians faking it. When performers play
television shows, they get little to no time to do a sound check.
The producers think that the audience expects it to "sound just
like the CD", and the performers want it to sound good too.
It is not a test of the singer's talent, it is just the way it is done
and has been for as long as I can remember.

The same thing is now happening in the theater. The orchestra is
being moved out of the pit and into places where they can no longer
be seen or heard, and then amplified into the room. Sometimes there
is a mix of a live orchestra with parts of the score coming from a
hard drive. Often there isn't an orchestra at all and everything is to
playback. Even the voices of the actors comes from playback for
at least parts of the show.

Any show of decent size puts wireless mics on just about everybody.
Typically 20 mics or more. It is a disaster and sounds nothing like
live theater most of the time. You can't hear the live sound coming
from the stage even when you sit in the first row. All you hear is the
damn public address system.

David

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