Returning after 4 years, "Singer 2024" made a big move of "live broadcast without sound repair" as soon as it was broadcast.
But after the first episode of the program was broadcast, the two foreign players firmly occupied the top two positions, and the domestic players seemed to be the only ones in charge of Na Ying. Some netizens ridiculed that the competition for the last place was more intense.
For a while, "Singer 2024" was upgraded to the "Chinese Music Scene Defense Battle", and many powerful singers "stepped forward" and expressed their willingness to participate.
The program team revealed that when inviting singers in the early stage of the show, they were politely rejected by many singers. Because the live broadcast has no sound repair, it will unreservedly show the singer's live singing strength.
《Singer 2024》首期排名第一的美国女歌香缇·莫 (Chanté Moore)|综艺节目《Singer 2024》截图
In recent years, the phenomenon of sound repair and padding in music programs has occurred frequently, and both the audience and singers seem to have gradually become accustomed to the post-processed sound.
What is Tone Fixation? Why do music programs need to be revised? Is there still a need for live singing?
What exactly is the sound repair?
Sound correction refers to the tuner importing the "dry sound" into the computer equipment, and repairing and adjusting it to achieve the desired effect. In music production, "dry" refers to unprocessed, accompanied-synthesized human voices.
There are two main parts of sound repair, pitch correction and rhythm repair, that is, adjusting the part of the voice that is out of tune and out of rhythm to ensure that the vocals are always in the correct tone and rhythm.
However, the correction of intonation is not a panacea.
Qin Yi, a doctor from the Central Conservatory of Music, wrote in the People's Music Review article "Is the Sound Repair Technology a Blessing or a Curse?" ——Watching Chinese music competition programs in the past ten years", it is said that when correcting the pitch, if the deviation is more than two degrees, it is easy to appear obvious "electronic sound", that is, the human voice is deformed. The distortion caused by this distortion can make the audience noticeably hear some abrupt sounds that do not match the singer's timbre, ruining the overall mood of the song.
In fact, the sound repair that people talk about is not only the sound repair, but also includes the "post-production" or "remix" content, that is, the effect processing of the following dimensions:
- Timbre Adjustment: Changing the frequency characteristics of a sound to enhance or attenuate a specific frequency range, making the sound clearer or warmer.
- Dynamic Adjustment: Adjust the volume range of the sound, compress or extend the dynamic range to ensure that the sound can be heard clearly at different volumes.
- Reverb: Adds space and depth to make the sound more natural and rich, mimicking the acoustics of different environments.
- Delay: Add a time delay effect to the sound to create an echo or expand the spatial sense of the sound.
From the point of view of the process, it is generally to fix the sound first, and then mix it. In the case of a group performance or a band performance, each vocal and each instrument will record a separate track, and each track will be adjusted separately, and then the overall track balance, mixing, etc. will be performed.
In terms of song type, there are different post-production methods for different types of songs. For example, folk music will be more mellow and full in vocals, and the vocals will be slightly prominent in the volume ratio of vocals and music. In pop music, the volume ratio of vocals to music tends to be balanced, and even the music may be slightly larger, while the vocals will maintain the singer's singing personality.
In recent years, a large number of music programs have appeared, which has promoted the rapid development of music post-processing technology, and there are even rumors of "millions of tuners" on the rivers and lakes, describing tuning as a miraculous process - "no matter what is sung in the early stage, everyone is a lark after tuning".
The imaginary "Million Tuners"|Source: "LOL ComediHa!" video screenshot
In fact, the tuner does not have such a strong ability to save, and it is impossible to replace the singer's real singing ability. But tuning does exist universally in related programs such as music variety shows now.
Why music programs should be revised
First of all, it is undeniable that there is a clear difference between listening to the same music program live and listening in front of the TV.
This is mainly because of the different ways in which sound is collected and transmitted. The sound heard by the audience is first collected through the microphone and then transmitted through the sound equipment on the spot.
The sound of TV programs is transmitted to the audience of TV, mobile phones and other devices by internal recording. Internal recording, i.e., split-track recording, is recorded separately with the accompaniment track, vocal track, and other possible instrument tracks, and then all audio is blended in the background. In this process, in order to make the proportions of each part more balanced and achieve high-quality musical effects, it is necessary to go through the mixing process.
For example, Wang Lei, dean of the School of Music Science and Technology of Beijing Modern Music Research Institute, and music variety mixer of "Crossover Singer" and "Sound into the Heart", said in an interview with the media that each song in "Sound into the Heart" has seventy or eighty tracks, and the average mixing of a song is about 8 hours, while the mixing of a song in a general studio record is 10 hours, so this program basically meets the high standard of the recording studio.
Screenshot of "Sound into the Heart" on the stage of the program|"Sound into the Heart".
In this process, it is not uncommon for the sound to be processed in order to restore the live effect.
At the scene of music programs, multiple audio equipment is often set up to make the sound more three-dimensional. Coupled with the blessing of the atmosphere of the scene, the audience will feel that this is a feast of multiple senses such as vision and hearing, so as to ignore some small flaws. The edited TV program not only needs to be post-processed to restore the live effect, but also needs to deal with the flaws exposed by the loss of the atmosphere of the scene.
In addition, the music program industry chain is becoming more and more perfect, and the sound standards for music program content are getting higher and higher.
On the one hand, due to the super memory of the Internet, the musicians participating in the show are unwilling to take risks of trial and error out of cherishing their feathers.
Singer Zhao Lei said in an interview with Nandu Entertainment that how good the effect of a stage presentation is mainly depends on the state of his voice that day. Singer Xu Ziwei also said that the pressure on singers comes from the fact that a full-open microphone recording without sound repair will become a work that will always accompany his acting career, and will be tasted and appreciated by the audience over and over again, which means that "if you have any bad performance, everyone will take it out and listen to it repeatedly".
Singer Xu Ziwei live|Source: Screenshot of the variety show "100% Singer".
Due to the intricacies of the environment, equipment and the physical condition of the musician on the day, the singer may have special circumstances at the music program. But the "super memory" of the Internet, no matter how long ago the show performance may be turned out one day later, singers are often reluctant to take this risk.
The Beijing News once quoted the professional Ajie (pseudonym) as saying that many singers represent not only individuals on stage, but also various interest chains such as their companies and fan economies...... But in fact, these singers are powerful. So I think it's necessary to add two or three points to them by fixing the tone. ”
Variety shows, on the other hand, need to meet market demand in order to find sponsors. According to Yien data, among the top 10 variety shows in the broadcast volume index in April 2024, "Riding the Wind 2024", as a music program, ranks second only to "Let's Farm Season 2" in terms of the number of sponsored brands, with a total of 8 brand sponsorships and 26 soft and wide types.
April 2024 Broadcast Volume Index TOP10 Variety Show Sponsorship|Source: References [14]
A large number of brand sponsorships and soft advertising implantation certainly have high requirements for the quality of program presentation. Post-processing such as sound editing can not only improve the overall "appearance" of the program, but also facilitate the extension of other related audio products to the shelves of music APP for further dissemination and maximize profits.
Why do we need to live stream?
Is there still a need for live streaming of music programs?
Although the post-tone revision improves the quality of the program, it also brings the audience an illusion that "the whole entertainment industry does not go out of tune". For singers, the general post-production of music does not require them to spend more time honing their technique and musical effects, or they are held back by the overall environment and cannot have more time polishing their music.
Wang Lei once recalled that a song might be recorded for two or three days back then, but now it can be recorded in two or three hours, and it depends on later repairs.
Especially for competition music variety shows, the much-complained "singing good and bad singing will be flattened" sound repair method will drown out the real good voice. Live streaming not only motivates singers to hone themselves, but is also an important way to maintain fairness.
Moreover, there are technical limitations to the pronunciation.
Deng Bo, a scholar at the School of Music of Hebei Normal University, said in the article "The Application of Pitch Correction Technology in Live Music Performances" that there are some criteria to follow for the evaluation of singers' singing skills, such as pitch, rhythm, breath, timbre, articulation and emotion. Qin Yi also believes that it is difficult to accurately deal with high-order aesthetic elements such as pronunciation, emotion and timbre, so it is still difficult to create music with high aesthetics through sound repair technology.
What's more, live broadcast has irreplaceable live vitality.
As the music critic Er Di said, at any time, the real appeal, vitality, and vividness will be more attractive than the perfect but false refined design, and the rigid and infallible perfection is boring and depressing.
伦敦大学学者John A. Sloboda等人在《Music And Emotion: Theory and Research》一书中也指出，观众对音乐中真实情感的敏感度较高，更容易被自然且有瑕疵的表演打动。
In other words, on-the-spot mistakes such as choking due to emotional excitement, as well as the singer's on-the-spot performance according to the live turntable, help enrich the mood of the song, let the audience feel the real emotions in the music, and thus generate empathy. On the contrary, if the defects are corrected in batches, the expression of true emotions will be weakened.
Of course, live streaming does not mean that there is no post-production at all.
Live broadcast refers to the post-production and simultaneous broadcast of radio and television programs. Although music programs in the form of live broadcast are limited by the recording method of internal recording, and some sound post-processing still needs to be carried out, on the whole, live broadcast has restored the realism of the scene as much as possible.
On May 15, the first episode of "Singer 2024" scored 9.4 points on Weibo, and the show also became the music variety show with the highest score on Weibo over the years, further proving the audience's cherishing of "truth".
bibliography
[1] Luo Chunqing. Modern Television Technology,2021,(05):74-77.)
[2] You Junyi, Digital Music Production: From Beginner to Mastery, Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2016, p. 158.
[3] Huang Yanjun. Ideas and experience of post-production of music programs[J].Audiovisual,2022,(05):182-184.)
[4] Can you still believe the singing of variety shows, talent shows and live broadcasts? 丨Reveal the secret https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ArQK3QEPSYjkWdFMQi0KJA of sound repair
[5] Yang Yingtian. Audiovisual Industry,2015,(01):104-105.
[6] Erdi, should TV music programs be "revised"? https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/sqOiv300cOF2whE-0eLOLA
[7] Deng Bo. Application of pitch correction technology in live music performance[J].Grand Stage,2014,(06):127-128.)
[8] Nandu Entertainment, can you still believe the singing voice of variety shows, talent shows and live broadcasts? 丨Reveal the secret of sound repair. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ArQK3QEPSYjkWdFMQi0KJA
[9] Nandu Entertainment, a full-open microphone, no sound repair, one-time music comprehensive, can "save internal entertainment"? https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/p13YxV_LB1-7UUhFK4vwBw
[10] Sloboda, John A, and Susan A O’neill, 'Emotions In Everyday Listening To Music', Music And Emotion: Theory and research (New York, NY, 2001; online edn, Oxford Academic, 31 Oct. 2023)
[11] Jacqueline Rifkin, &Katherine Du.The allure of the ad-lib: New research identifies why people prefer spontaneity in entertainment. 2023,(06).https://theconversation.com/the-allure-of-the-ad-lib-new-research-identifies-why-people-prefer-spontaneity-in-entertainment-203487
[12] People's Music, Qin Yi | Is it a blessing or a curse that sound editing technology is popular? ——Watching the Chinese music competition program in the past ten years. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/c-Vl-C6xtng37xZj5oBbWA
[13] Entertainment Li, "Millions of Sound Repairers" Answer Questions: Electronic Music and Lip-syncing in the Music Complex...... What the hell is going on? https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/2lafBLG91YekLF6ENQ3xTw
[14] Yien Data, April 2024 Entertainment Industry Market Observation https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jMbGWvanBSOxN7PeLsAyjg
Author: Zhang Nan Editor: Tennessee Duty Editor: Min Min