[Namie Amuro] Namie's singing technique...

[_dandy_]

I was watching Namie Amuro's Play Tour 2007 concert for the first time last evening, and it occurred to me that, despite the video file having the 5.1 mix track, it sounded *bad* throughout. As in, poorly mixed - at times, you can barely hear her own vocals over the music or the prerecorded background vocals.

It also occurred to me that throughout this particular concert, she keeps waving the microphone in front of her mouth and away from it to "control" her volume as she's holding a note and wants to make it sound louder or softer - but does it very poorly. Like a directional microphone that's too sensitive and dropping off too early.

I have no background in sound engineering or recording or even singing techniques. But I've been made to understand however that a singer should always hold the microphone *very* close to his/her mouth, let *it* capture all it can, and then let the audio engineers work out the rest. But, if she keeps holding it at different distances, there's very little that is captured and can be "corrected". I've been watching a lot of concerts lately from herself, Koda Kumi and Ayu, and it seems to me that they all generally follow this rule. This one's an exception.

I'm sure I'm explaining this rather poorly, like I said, I have no background in this sort of thing, but this is the first time I've noticed her doing this throughout an entire concert, and I dare say this is by far the worst-sounding concert I've ever heard--given that it's a professionally mastered one. I'd expect this perhaps from some cheap TV production or a live outdoors event, but not a commercial Blu-ray.

Has anyone else noticed this from this particular concert? I'm certainly not just imagining it.

[SunshineSlayer]

^ FYI, it's not just that concert. The worst sound for any of her dvds is her 03-04 tour. Other than that though, most of her concert DVDs sound excellent.

[AJFmzk]

Originally Posted by _dandy_

I was watching Namie Amuro's Play Tour 2007 concert for the first time last evening, and it occurred to me that, despite the video file having the 5.1 mix track, it sounded *bad* throughout. As in, poorly mixed - at times, you can barely hear her own vocals over the music or the prerecorded background vocals.

It also occurred to me that throughout this particular concert, she keeps waving the microphone in front of her mouth and away from it to "control" her volume as she's holding a note and wants to make it sound louder or softer - but does it very poorly. Like a directional microphone that's too sensitive and dropping off too early.

I have no background in sound engineering or recording or even singing techniques. But I've been made to understand however that a singer should always hold the microphone *very* close to his/her mouth, let *it* capture all it can, and then let the audio engineers work out the rest. But, if she keeps holding it at different distances, there's very little that is captured and can be "corrected". I've been watching a lot of concerts lately from herself, Koda Kumi and Ayu, and it seems to me that they all generally follow this rule. This one's an exception.

I'm sure I'm explaining this rather poorly, like I said, I have no background in this sort of thing, but this is the first time I've noticed her doing this throughout an entire concert, and I dare say this is by far the worst-sounding concert I've ever heard--given that it's a professionally mastered one. I'd expect this perhaps from some cheap TV production or a live outdoors event, but not a commercial Blu-ray.

Has anyone else noticed this from this particular concert? I'm certainly not just imagining it.

I haven't watched Play Tour recently enough to comment on it specifically, but I have noticed that mixing is poor when it comes to vocals on some of her dvds, the background vocals take over the mix and it's hard to hear her live vocals. As someone who is studying audio engineering (casually, as a hobby) I have noticed it, I remember being particularly critical of the vocal mixing on FEEL Tour Bluray.

What she does with the mic is called the proximity effect. The closer you have the mic to your mouth, besides more volume, the more bass it picks up in your voice. Alternatively, the farther you have it from your mouth, the less volume and less bass it picks up. Kind of like a high pass filter. It makes the vocal sound thinner and airier by not capturing bass frequencies.

I've noticed she uses it in two ways: the soft ending and the high note screams. For the soft endings it's more of a fade off, which ideally you should do with your voice and not mic proximity as you pointed out, it is generally desirable to have the mic capture as much as possible. But truthfully people will do whatever little tricks they can to make things sound what they feel is best in the live setting, using the mic this way isn't terribly unique, but she does it a lot which can be distracting.

When she holds the mic farther away when she screams some of the high notes, if you do that with the mic too close you'd get clipping (when the input signal is too loud for the mic, definition is lost as it gets cut off by the mic's max input range...as good as dynamic range mics are, they still have limits, I've noticed some clipping in Ayu's shows (not often but I've noticed when it's happened).

I remember reading an article a long time ago that said she's very good at working the venue's live acoustics to her advantage, but who knows. You are correct, however that it kind of hamstrings the post production mixing engineers because they have less source to work with. In any case, I don't know if any of the above was intentional on a technical level or a consequence of her using the mic that way, but it's what's happening on a technical level.

Anyway, that's just my two cents on the technical aspects. Sorry for the super long post but I tend to write lengthy explanations for things. :p

[Andrenekoi]

Making the live vocals vanish into the backtrack is one of the ways a performer that sings and dances at the same time uses to disguise inevitable vocal fails, so, for the average listener the final product sounds better.

Ayu does the same thing during her most choreographed numbers, but she lets her voice hide behind the backing vocals instead of a backtrack.

[AJFmzk]

^ Yes. That is very true and a great point. At the end of the day it is about making the vocals sound as good as possible to the live audience and sometimes little tricks need to be employed to cover what is lacking. Both Namie and Ayu push themselves very hard and as you said, it is impossible to do so much all at the same time and be perfect at all of them all the time, just the nature of being human.

[_dandy_]

(sorry it took me almost a full month to get back to my own thread)

Originally Posted by AJFmzk

I have noticed that mixing is poor when it comes to vocals on some of her dvds, the background vocals take over the mix and it's hard to hear her live vocals.

You've probably done a better job explaining it with this one sentence than I tried to get across with my entire post. It's like I'm hearing more of the pre-recorded background vocals than the life singing.

Originally Posted by AJFmzk

Anyway, that's just my two cents on the technical aspects. Sorry for the super long post but I tend to write lengthy explanations for things. :p

No need to apologize, I appreciate the insight.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed this. Over the past few months I've been listening to a lot of Ayu's/Namie's/Koda Kumi's concerts, and this one stands out - although I think at this point I'll say I've only noticed it with Namie's concerts--and more than one.

However - in hindsight - I'll point this out: The Namie concerts I've been watching are Blu-ray rips that only have the 5.1 mix, and I've been listening with VLC on a system that's only got stereo speakers. Ordinarily, VLC would switch to the stereo mix, but it's not part of the rip at all. VLC *should* be doing a good job downmixing it in stereo, but I'm starting to think the main vocal track is simply not being played back, so what I'm hearing might just be the left and right channels. It would certainly explain a lot. Though right now I can't prove this is what's going on.

I do have a full surround system, but my receiver is so old I can't think of a way I could get the MKV file, on my computer, playing through it with the full 6 channels, unless I burn either a DVD or Blu-ray.

I'll post a follow-up if I ever do that and notice an improvement. Could be a VLC setting for all I know, although it's generally been doing a fine job playing 5.1 tracks with only two speakers.