Libera Dreams

I myself have been told that same thing from reliable sources. Libera would never mask their pureness behind pre-recorded tracks unless absolutely necessary due to inefficient acoustics and whatnot.

They were singing, I'm sure, but is it possible that they played pre-recorded music for the television broadcast?

That is a very definite possibility as a big handful of television stations do that, although they claim it is Live. Usually they pre-record the shows and if they see that some performances are not suitable for television broadcasting, they could have possibly edited the Live performance out and inserted a pre-recorded version.

I am not sure of the rules for Live broadcasting within the BBC but here in the US, there really is no such thing as Live tv anymore. Because of the so called "wardrobe malfuction" the other year during the Super Bowl, all Live tv is now broadcast on a 5 to 7 second delay to give the techs behind the scenes a chance to stop certain things from airing.
But, that really would not allow for a musical flub to be fixed. One way to check is to pay very close attention to the singers mouth, especially the lips and toungue. If they are lipsyncing, it will show as something will be off, even if it is just a fraction of a second off. Now, as to our boys, if you watch the Far Away vid from SOP, look at Michael during his close ups. Everything is right on the mark. He was really singing during the recording.

I know this doesn't shed any light on if there was lipsyncing at the LCS show or not. I have not seen that performance and since I use dialup, I doubt I will be anytime soon. I can only offer what I said before. I doubt very seriously that RP would have let them perform if they were supposed to lipsync. They really performed on When Will I Be Famous, they really performed at the Kennedy Centre Honors and they most definitely performed live at the Concert for Hope. If that had been faked, the sound quality would have been much, much better.

I agree with you, RP is a v ery intelligent man and would do what is right for his boys. Im sure the boys were singing Live or they would not have performed. And the mention of that "wardrobe malfunction" during the superbowl a few years back has really gotten me thinking whether or not "Live" broadcasts really are Live, though Im sure a vast majority of them are not. Libera is a unique group and would never lipsync on a Live show, thats what makes this group so special and unique,

TEB wrote:

TullyBascombe wrote:I imagine that they lip synch for many of their videos, for one thing the videos are often shot at locations that would have dreadful acoustics.

I actually have it from a very reliable source, that for most all of the Songs of Praise videos, they were really singing in them. Probably with alot of different takes of course but they were singing.
Now, for their regular videos, especially the ones shot outside, like the last version of Michael's Far Away for instance, those are obviously lip synced. They'd have to be.

That's what I was thinking of. Other examples would be the 2005 Libera video, where they were climbing on and jumping off the pedestal. If that was recorded while being shot surely you'd at least here the leaves rustle. There's also the recording off the cliffs of Devon - we don't here the wind blowing or the sea breaking on the rocks. There are a number of others where it would have been advantageous to record the song in a nice sound studio seperately from filming the video.

Hi all

I've got some experience concerning live recording of choirs.
I know both sides: the one as chorister and the one of the technical point of view as former sound engineer.
(The fact that I was a chorister in a convent school years ago is not relevant for this question. )

First I want to express my belief: In the QEH they really sung live!
(more about that later)

In typical video productions you don't want to deal with acustic challenges. It's a "video" So the sound normally comes from the tape and the singer and other musicians have to lip synch.

In live broadcastings you often see how silly it is. They even haven't plugged in a cable on the guitars.
Normally the heads of drums are out of gum.
So the live audience is not irritated by the noise.
The reason they don't really play is only the question of cost.

Imagine how complex and costy the infrastructure in a pop concert is. Only the drum kit needs about 12 to 15 microphones. And they have to be leveled correctly. For one piece of music in a broadcast... no way!


Let's focus a video production of a live performance. Especially of a choir and orchestra.
I was chorister in the choir of the swiss television and we produced (=recorded) quit alot of live performances.

The typical procedure was the following:
We prerecorded the sound in a sound studio which was big enough to accommodate a 100-man orchestra and a 100-person choir. And a room with optimal acoustic presuppositions!
Note: It was still our own sound and performance!

In the event location (mostly a church) there were two performances with audience. Both were recorded on video but one was lip synched.
For close-ups of choristers they used the live sound because of better synchronicity. Often they used the playback-version when they recorded close-ups of instruments. I can't explain any reason when is uses which version.

Now Libera:
I've heard them sing in London - 7 meters in front of me.
They really sang theirselves. From my point of view the sound was rather a bit too low-voiced generally. The advantage was that we could hear the voices directly from the stage and not only out of the loudspeakers.
(I felt a little bit disappointed first but during the concert I got excited because of the charm and intimity of that performance.)

But it was clear that the musical accompaniment was a (absolutely brilliant) mix of playback and the live played parts (by Steven an Robert).
There was definitively no orchestra. But the two keyboarders succeded in controlling the music so brilliant and clever.

I could imagine that the orchestra on the DVD was prerecorded too. (It's very ambitious to catch the sound of an orchestra combined with electronic instruments and drums in a room with that reverb (church).)

The longer I reflect the clearer is it for me: They sang originally on the DVD.

The mics for the chorister were positioned quit complex: You can see them hanging over the stage (small black things). Selected singers were equipped with little beige-coloured microphones. Mini Ben even talked about the advantages of their robes where they can hide these "tiny little microphones". (prior to "I Am The Day")
These mics are also used in musicals and the are that small they can be positioned f.e. in the hair over the forehead of the actor.

In London they used other mics. They were nearer the mouth and nose. From technical point of view they are more comfortable to work with but not from the optical one.

My opinion in terms of the singing:
Concerts: Live
Videos: Normally Playback (but their own sound!)
Live Broadcast or Songs of Praise in the Studio: Live

The following could be interesting:

1. Who was in Leiden and could tell us what happened on the two days in detail.

2. Who was in London QEH and tells me about his experience concerning the sound especially in the middle and back of the hall.


Cheers from Switzerland
Urs

Urs wrote:Hi all



I could imagine that the orchestra on the DVD was prerecorded too. (It's very ambitious to catch the sound of an orchestra combined with electronic instruments and drums in a room with that reverb (church).)

Cheers from Switzerland
Urs

A careful viewing of the DVD definitely shows the orchestra was live. It was off to the right of the audience behind Big Ben's station but in a position so as RP could see them to lead them.
But this was also a single performance and not part of any kind of tour. On the American tour, I am sure they sang to pre-recorded orchestral music with RP and Steven filling in as necessary on keyboards. Though at the concert before the Pope, there are pics of the boys with an orchestra in the foreground. But I've already discussed that. With the sound quality being so poor, you know it was live and not lipsynced.

A careful viewing of the DVD definitely shows the orchestra was live. It was off to the right of the audience behind Big Ben's station but in a position so as RP could see them to lead them.

Your absolutely right. Of course there really was the orchestra playing during the concert. There even are some rare close-ups during the intro of Prayer an you really see some instrumentalists of the orchestera.

Based on the points I mentioned there are in minimum some takes where the music is playback (especially in general views 'camera flights'). This is regular practice.

Rights now I'm listening to the soundtrack of the DVD.
Concentrating f.e. on the sound of the boy's breathing and other sounds in comparison with the pictures show the authenticity of the sound of the their voices.

Has anybody compared the sound of the DVD with the sound of the CD?
They said that it sounds different.

Urs wrote:[Has anybody compared the sound of the DVD with the sound of the CD?
They said that it sounds different.

I have both the DVD and CD of the Leiden concert and to my untrained ear they sound the same. But wouldn't the sound quality be impacted by the quality of the device you are playing it on?

Thanks Jude.

I've downloaded some pieces of the CD from iTunes Store.
The comparison of both - DVD and CD - really seem to show no difference.

I've listened to them with the same device: by headphones.
(I captured the soundtrack of the DVD and burnt a CD.)

I wonder where I've got that information concerning the differences.

TEB wrote:On the American tour, I am sure they sang to pre-recorded orchestral music with RP and Steven filling in as necessary on keyboards.

For the concert at the Egg, at least, the accompaniment for most of the songs was pretty clearly a combination of the synthesizers played live and some (synthesized) loops, presumably triggered from the stage. Without watching their fingers, of course, it's impossible to know for sure what parts were which, although I'd guess the drums and maybe bass were loops. (I suspect these were MIDI or sampler loops rather than simple prerecorded background tracks, if only because that provides more flexibility if you need it during the performance, and--probably more important, given the different venues they performed in--far more control over the audio mix.)

That is, of course, excepting the live violin playing and the selections where Mr. Prizeman played the acoustic piano, which were very clearly performed live.

hmmm... if there is necessity for a lip synch especially in making videos, i do not think it will affect in anyway libera's music or credibility at that.

krishna mie wrote:hmmm... if there is necessity for a lip synch especially in making videos, i do not think it will affect in anyway libera's music or credibility at that.

krishna, your absolutelly right!

Late contribution, but I think there's a simple answer to whether they lip-synched or not (based on the observation that their mouths were not in synch with the music in the last part), and it has already been answered by TEB. It was probably a mistake from the post-production part.

If you look closely at the last part when the hosts talk, they are also talking 'ahead' of the sound. They wouldn't lip synch that, would they?