2. music
  3. 158924-136265

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
mozartfan OP
2,143 posts
 
I doubt we listen to ANY vocalist without some enhancement.

OK  now thats understood. 
Here may be something that was at the back of my mind as i heard Diana Krall, again, a very talented artist, both keys and vocals. 
That gal can sing, poetry.
But at the back of my mind, may have been a  long ago fond memory of songs on the AM radio wayyy back when,,   taht recollection of sound, amy have triggered my (over) reaction to listening to Diana Kralls studio engineered record...
It is such as this one..
Ck out what back then they considered a  microphone. 
I just  can not imagine there were many gadgets to mod the voice.
I'd just like to believe we are hearing pure talent, with no mods.On songs such as this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbnrdCS57d0
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,598 posts
 
Even if you went to see Diana or Sophie live there would most likely be some processing done to their vocals to adjust for the acoustics of the venue.  If there's electricity and speakers involved in the sound, it'll be different than what you'd hear without that stuff.
limomangus's avatar
limomangus
1,437 posts
 
My feelings about live recording is that alot of times back then it was a way an artist could fulfill there contract .There are good ones but hundreds of ones that suck...mostly the recording itself.
big_greg
6,664 posts
 
This reminds me of all the posts in photography forums about how Photoshop takes away from images and that photographer should "get it right" in the camera.

On topic, I've never noticed anything unnatural about Diana Krall's voice on recordings, but then I haven't sat in a room while she was singing and heard her natural voice without amplification or other effects.   I fully expect that the team involved in recording the music will (and should) use whatever tools are at their disposal to get the end product they want.  

Even live recordings often have studio overdubs and editing.  
bigkidz
3,397 posts
 
Why would you use any of her recordings to test anything.  Find some good test CDs and use those instead.


More to discover