Measure for Measure: Recordings
By Mike Chin on Mar 13, 2008 in Featured, Measure for Measure, News
Each Friday an A Cappella Blog contributor will take a look at both sides of a controversial, interesting, or seemingly random statement related to collegiate a cappella.
We welcome you to weigh in on the topic at hand by posting a comment.
We also welcome readers to offer up their own statements for our writers to consider, Measure for Measure.
The increasingly produced sound found on many a cappella recordings takes away from the art form that is a cappella.
True: When I listen to a cappella, I want to hear a cappella. If you can’t make the sound with your own body, it doesn’t have a place in the music. Some talented groups can make you forget there’s no instrumentation by how good they are, and that’s an awesome thing. However, when I can’t make out a human voice in the background of a song because of just how produced the recording is, it means that it isn’t a cappella for me anymore. Listening to a recording, I want to hear the same nuances, creativity and tricks a live performance will bring. If you’re going to fudge that, you’d might as well bring in the guitar, keyboards, and drum kit as well, and call yourself a band.
False: The beauty of a recording over a live performance is that you can clean up the messy parts of a song, and enhance the overall quality accenting what’s good, and covering what doesn’t work. When you’re listening to a recording, you shouldn’t be expecting the same sound you’ll get at a live show. You should be expecting an optimized listening experience, for which professionals have tweaked the music to make it better than the human voice could ever manage on its own.
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I’m in between on this issue. When I hear an overly-produced album, I’m only impressed with the producer and engineers (and the arranger I suppose). The fact is, it really doesn’t take a whole lot of singing/ group talent nowadays to make an excellent album. I’m not saying that groups with overly-produced albums aren’t talented, but they better have the live talent to back it up.
As someone who is experienced in both aspects (a cappella singing and music production), I prefer studio production that just slightly enhances what could be done in a live setting.
The bottom line is, when I listen to BOCA (or something similiar), I’m jealous only of the producers’ talent and the groups’ ability to raise money. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want one of my recordings on BOCA, though…
Syracusian | Mar 14, 2008 | Reply
I’m with you, Syracusian.
I appreciate good recordings as their own art form, but I’m really *impressed* by good live performing much more than good recordings.
davecharliebrown | Mar 14, 2008 | Reply
I’m also in between, but I wouldn’t say that “If you can’t make the sound with your own body, it doesn’t have a place in the music”. You can do a lot of things live even with the aid of technology that you can’t do without. For instance, a female vocal percussionist can get booming kick drums and even sing bass along with it by being well-versed in mic technique and maybe even using an octave pedal. We’ve also run soloists through different effects, even a guitar amp, once, at live performances. This is something you can also produce in the studio- and to me they are the same. Yeah, I don’t want a whole bunch of programmed midi that uses sampled sounds to the point where it’s no longer a cappella, even if they are of my own voice, but tuning, effects, double octaves, and EQ are all fine by me!
shane | Mar 17, 2008 | Reply