Based on the sound, they are not pushing the mix directly to the broadcast. Instead they are feeding the broadcast from the live mics in the stadium for a "Live" sound and feel rather than the clean pre-recorded take.
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Bassist behind Usher @ Halftime Super Bowl 58
- Thread starter Tim Skaggs
- Start date
Based on the sound, they are not pushing the mix directly to the broadcast. Instead they are feeding the broadcast from the live mics in the stadium for a "Live" sound and feel rather than the clean pre-recorded take.
Fender pulls out all the stops. All of the HER Strats have painted headstocks. They must have sent the necks to Japan for that. Advanced Headstock Painting Technology is out of the range of the Corona shop.
I agree that the show has been pre-recorded in all recent years but I'm not sure parts or all of it wasn't live last night. To your point, it had too many imperfections to have been a contemplated take.
At minimum, all of the vocals were live. You could see the dynamics changing in Usher's voice as he moved his head, hear his breathing as he danced, etc. I'm less sure about the backing tracks.
My crew commented that the show wasn't as good as they expected. I agree it wasn't, but I told them that some of it was because Usher was courageous enough to do some of it live, and what they were hearing was a normal live show without the benefit of pre- or post-production.
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Dupri was awesome. So was Luda. Usher been working out.
At (IMO) too many concerts now, the choreography & visual have taken precedence over the music.
The Superb Owl is just the most blatant example of it.
I always feel badly for Milli Vanilli when I see shows like this; those guys paid an oversized price for what has become commonplace/accepted in performance.
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Could be, but that doesn't explain the visual tracking of the vocal dynamics with what we were hearing. The easiest way to detect lip syncing is to watch the head of the singer and it's even easier when the show is dancing and choreography like that one was. I imagine they might have recorded the vocal tracks during a similar situation where they were moving and dancing.
I loved the half time show. Gave me a break from the game to catch up on some unrelated YouTube videos.
Pre-recorded or not, this year's show was WAY better than last year's.
1993 was when they implemented the performance be pre-recorded. They obviously use live mics for the artists to "talk", "yell", etc..
I just assumed they sang along to a full backing track (with vocals.) It gives insurance to the vocals, if anything happens they still have the backing track rolling, but it gives the opportunity for the performer to sing and talk during the performance.
I timed it out of curiosity this year. Took 11 minutes to set up, 13 minutes performance, and 8 minutes to tear down. Setup and tear down probably took less time than that, because I was just timing from when it went to and came back from commercial.
Such is the life of a trailblazer. Heh.
I believe the majority of the music for these is canned, but certain parts are still "real." The featured artist vocals are almost always live (Usher and Alicia Keys definitely were- his mic came up late at the beginning of the performance, and her first note was a nasty voice crack that surely would have been fixed in a recorded performance), and I think HER's guitar was live but I don't know for sure. Luda and Lil Jon probably were too, based on the amount of ad-lib they were doing.
In years past I know recent shows have been a blend of pre-recorded and live stuff- Bruno Mars notably had a live drum solo at the beginning of his performance, but most of the band was canned from rehearsals and tech week, the chili peppers didn't bother plugging in etc., but I think as technology for this stuff continues to improve and become extremely reliable they can get away with more and more live stuff on the broadcast. 20 years ago, before advances in wireless, digital boards etc, that was a lot harder.
Agreed, those half time "shows" are one big joke.
I suspect you have not followed R&B closely for the last thirty years. Usher is huge and he is actually "Old School" to the 45 and under crowd. He has already sold out an October show in St. Louis and another show has been added for the next day. The Super Bowl folks knew what they were doing when they booked him.
For what it's worth, I'm not an Usher fan, I just know he is big in his music scene.
Surprised nobody is talking bout no Post Malone…The hair on my arms stood up. Best performance since Whitney Houston's canned National Anthem performance. I thought the guy was a clown, but he damn sure impressed me.
I think Usher was dropping some expletives at the end of the show that were silenced out - it looked like his mouth and throat were moving between audible words at the end. His vocals were probably at least partially live.
Yeah- came with a single, but he swapped them for the L500 (lawrence- Wilde Pickups). He also put in Floyd Rose and a mirror guard.
The first thing I thought when I saw H.E.R.'s beautiful red guitar was the GUP era Fender from Lifeson. Really good looking guitars. She has a signature guitar...
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