The band will have in-ear monitors so they can hear the playback of the vocal with a click track to keep them together when the voice isn't singing. So basically, the band is playing to a soundtrack only they can hear in their ear monitors which includes the vocal playback and the singer just fakes it. It's kind o the same when omeone plays in the studio. It's pretty rare these days for a ban to play together at the same time. Usually you go in to do your part and a lot of the other parts are pre-recorded. You're just playing to a track, even if you're a bass player. Does that answer your question or did you mean something else?

steakfinger said:

The band will have in-ear monitors so they can hear the playback of the vocal with a click track to keep them together when the voice isn't singing. So basically, the band is playing to a soundtrack only they can hear in their ear monitors which includes the vocal playback and the singer just fakes it. It's kind o the same when omeone plays in the studio. It's pretty rare these days for a ban to play together at the same time. Usually you go in to do your part and a lot of the other parts are pre-recorded. You're just playing to a track, even if you're a bass player. Does that answer your question or did you mean something else?

Interesting, i never knew this.

steakfinger said:

The reason why Michael Jackson sang live during the rehearsals but lipsynced during the concerts is most likely that he wasn't happy with how his live vocals sounded like during certain songs. With many of those songs he just seemed to give up ultimately.

Usually, it seems to me that the artists that do the most lip synching the band isn't playing that much live either. Usually artists that lip sync a lot are doing some type of dance electronic music that is playing from computers not instruments anyway. That's the whole reason they are lip synching because they are dancing to dance oriented music and it's hard to sing properly and dance heavily at the same time. Even the artists that lip sync to the uptempo dance stuff don't lip sync when they do ballads in the same concert where the band is playing more stuff live.

Glindathegood said:

novabrkr said:

The reason why Michael Jackson sang live during the rehearsals but lipsynced during the concerts is most likely that he wasn't happy with how his live vocals sounded like during certain songs. With many of those songs he just seemed to give up ultimately.

MJ was the first artist that came to my mind when I read the thread title. In many of the clips I've seen, it would appear that he'd lipsync the main part of the song and then 'go live' on the ad libs towards the end. That was largely the case when I saw him in 1997, where 95% of the show was lipsynced, but what struck me then - and I was reminded of this when I read your comment about him 'giving up' - was that he'd often sing the first line of the song, as if he was going to give the whole thing a go, then look to the side of the stage, whereupon the prerecorded vocal track would be triggered. On that tour, he wasn't doing much in the way of complex, exhausting dance routines, so it did seem that it was more about his own anxieties about his performance. It was made all the more obvious by the fact he was using those headset mics, rather than a handheld one which singers can kind of hide behind. I often wondered if his tendency to cup his hand around the end of the headset mic whilst lipsyncing was to cover himself and 'hide his shame', as it were.

One thing it made me wonder was: why do singers who do this use the vocal track from the record, which, to most fans, is instantly recognisable as such? Why not, for example, go into the studio at the start of the tour and rerecord the vocals, perhaps with some slight differences, and - if they're a veteran performer - with the distinctive qualities of their voice in that period? Perhaps it would seem too 'deceptive'; although you could argue that it's kind of deceptive to lipsync live, whatever way you slice it.

deebee said:

deebee said:

novabrkr said:

The reason why Michael Jackson sang live during the rehearsals but lipsynced during the concerts is most likely that he wasn't happy with how his live vocals sounded like during certain songs. With many of those songs he just seemed to give up ultimately.

MJ was the first artist that came to my mind when I read the thread title. In many of the clips I've seen, it would appear that he'd lipsync the main part of the song and then 'go live' on the ad libs towards the end. That was largely the case when I saw him in 1997, where 95% of the show was lipsynced, but what struck me then - and I was reminded of this when I read your comment about him 'giving up' - was that he'd often sing the first line of the song, as if he was going to give the whole thing a go, then look to the side of the stage, whereupon the prerecorded vocal track would be triggered. On that tour, he wasn't doing much in the way of complex, exhausting dance routines, so it did seem that it was more about his own anxieties about his performance. It was made all the more obvious by the fact he was using those headset mics, rather than a handheld one which singers can kind of hide behind. I often wondered if his tendency to cup his hand around the end of the headset mic whilst lipsyncing was to cover himself and 'hide his shame', as it were.

One thing it made me wonder was: why do singers who do this use the vocal track from the record, which, to most fans, is instantly recognisable as such? Why not, for example, go into the studio at the start of the tour and rerecord the vocals, perhaps with some slight differences, and - if they're a veteran performer - with the distinctive qualities of their voice in that period? Perhaps it would seem too 'deceptive'; although you could argue that it's kind of deceptive to lipsync live, whatever way you slice it.

Yeah, I think they should. At least it would be something a lil different for the fans, even if they know its lipsynched.

I remember MJ on the History tour performed Scream as the opening song and Janets vocals were replaced by him singing them. Although the track was lipsynced, it was cool to hear his voice on those Janet parts as it was something I'd never heard before. So I agree, he should've rerecorded all the lead vocals for the tour to give it some variation.

I kinda got the same impression as you with the holding the headset mic thing, that it was in a way covering up. But now as I think about it more, maybe holding a mic up to his mouth had become such a habit since childhood, that he'd just often fall into doing it without really realising? Who knows...

[Edited 12/6/12 4:37am]

He lypsynch (WE ALL KNOW THIS ) but not to the extent that your guys are insinuating . He sung enough live by the time BAD came out to prove he was a great live performer and singer EVEN during BAD which was 95 percent live. There are also medical conditions people are not taking into consideration that he had that had a huge affect on why he chose not to sing live on the latter portion of his career, better examples of lypsynchers would be Madonna or Janet..... that is all.

go to

anthony-king.com/blog/did-michael-jackson-sing-live-on-the-history-tour/

it goes deep into what and what Michael didn't sing live on Bad Tour/Dangerous/History

IT is not true the Michael didn't mimed on Bad tour.

first leg of the tour was live but on the second leg songs like Smooh Criminal and Thriller were mimed.

thebanishedone said:

i mean the band is playing live yet the lead vocals are lip synched. how to make it work?

It's probably no different than those Elvis concerts started in the late 1990's. Elvis is obviously not live.

thebanishedone said:

go to

anthony-king.com/blog/did-michael-jackson-sing-live-on-the-history-tour/

it goes deep into what and what Michael didn't sing live on Bad Tour/Dangerous/History

IT is not true the Michael didn't mimed on Bad tour.

first leg of the tour was live but on the second leg songs like Smooh Criminal and Thriller were mimed.

Did you see me type that BAD was 100% live? No I did not imply that but it seems poster here are just egging to bag MJ over a topic that is redundant and that people know already. It is important to understand medical reasons to why he did that and to note that he had sung 100 percent live before he broke solo with his tours and already showed to be a great live singer. So all this other stuff really means nothing. He proved he was a good live performer and already paid his dues.

mjscarousal said:

thebanishedone said:

mjscarousal said:

Did you see me type that BAD was 100% live? No I did not imply that but it seems poster here are just egging to bag MJ over a topic that is redundant and that people know already. It is important to understand medical reasons to why he did that and to note that he had sung 100 percent live before he broke solo with his tours and already showed to be a great live singer. So all this other stuff really means nothing. He proved he was a good live performer and already paid his dues.

calm down man.popular opinion including myself is that Bad was all Live Yokahoma is live. I know Michael's past effort with brothers was all live.i have destiny tour boot and at the time Jackson was top notch vocaly .since he went solo he lost the gritt and funk from his voice but that is another topic.this one is about musicians who lyp synch yet the band is playing live

I am calm I never denied this redundant issue wasnt true.