NikNik Posted June 6, 2023 Share Posted June 6, 2023 Found myself listening to this earlier on. I think the bass is overdubbed. Thoughts? SLS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 6, 2023 Share Posted June 6, 2023 The original performance will have been recorded onto 24 track, so it would be trivial to overdub or replace any parts that weren't quite up to scratch on the evening. Remember that other well-known "live" albums of that era had been seriously tickled up afterwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
police squad Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 great bass line 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMG456 Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 Interested to learn what actually made you think it's an overdub @NikNik? Looks to me as though it is very well synced with the video at all points. The bass part is different to the one on the original studio recording- more rhythmically constant in keeping with someone who's concentrating on getting the vocal right. He fluffs the G after the stop leading into the last verse - he's not even on screen for that one so if it was dubbed surely he would have taken the opportunity to fix it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacDaddy Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 Wings Over America, has its share of overdubs, so it's not something he hasn't done before. What year is the clip from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 10 minutes ago, MacDaddy said: Wings Over America, has its share of overdubs, so it's not something he hasn't done before. What year is the clip from? The clip is from the "Rockshow" film, which comes from the same concerts as "Wings Over America". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EssentialTension Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 Overdubbed or not, it's a great bassline. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obi 2 kenobi Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 (edited) Louis Johnson also played it a few years later for Macca on the Broadway thing Edited June 7, 2023 by obi 2 kenobi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NikNik Posted June 7, 2023 Author Share Posted June 7, 2023 4 hours ago, EMG456 said: Interested to learn what actually made you think it's an overdub @NikNik? Looks to me as though it is very well synced with the video at all points. The bass part is different to the one on the original studio recording- more rhythmically constant in keeping with someone who's concentrating on getting the vocal right. He fluffs the G after the stop leading into the last verse - he's not even on screen for that one so if it was dubbed surely he would have taken the opportunity to fix it? Aside from it being very upfront in the mix,I thought his playing appeared out of sync at times, and some notes didn't look like they were 'played' I watched it a few more times and now I have my doubts that the bass was overdubbed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_b Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 All live albums are remixed before release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 49 minutes ago, NikNik said: Aside from it being very upfront in the mix,I thought his playing appeared out of sync at times, and some notes didn't look like they were 'played' I watched it a few more times and now I have my doubts that the bass was overdubbed. The concerts that made up Wings Over America (album) and Rock Show (film) were recorded on multi-track tape (probably 24-track) using one of the many mobile studios that were popular for live recordings in the 70s, so having a different mix to that heard FoH with the bass guitar louder would have been simple. How does the mix compare with the audio only version on WOA? Like most "live" albums of the time, various parts were overdubbed afterwards, in the case of WOA specifically the backing vocals, but anything else that required attention would have been touched up if necessary. Both releases were complied from multiple concerts and in the case of Rock Show it is possible that footage from a different performance to the audio was cut to fit, if the best audio and visual performances didn't come from the same gig. Very few "live" recordings of any kind are done direct to stereo, even when they are being broadcast in real time, the broadcast mix will be done separately to the FoH mix, and nearly always recorded to multi-track to allow for the possibility of fixing errors and adjusting the balance at a later date for release or rebroadcast. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diskwave Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 Overdubbed or not u can bet ur nelliie he could play it and sing it live. May have overdubbed it to give it a bit more presence. Grt, tune takes me right back to that long hot summer of 76. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 (edited) Live albums occupy a weird niche in performance terms. Most of the time if you make a mistake playing a gig it's over and gone in a fraction of a second, and most of the audience will never even have noticed it. However once you capture that performance for posterity, it's a different proposition. If a mistake is obvious, then I think most musicians would want to fix it before making the recording available to the public. Even if none of the performances required individual attention, the recording will have been mixed at leisure, often with the same attention to detail that a studio album would have received. On top of that most live albums will have been compiled from multiple gigs - in the case of WOA the just under 2 hours of album represents the best taken from 90 hours of recordings - so there is always some degree of artifice. Edited June 7, 2023 by BigRedX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulWarning Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 I had to sort out some live tracks for the band I'm in, I just cut and pasted bits from other parts of the song where we hadn't made a mistake, no over dubbing, as such, required Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waddo Soqable Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 3 hours ago, BigRedX said: Live albums occupy a weird niche in performance terms. Most of the time if you make a mistake playing a gig it's over and gone in a fraction of a second, and most of the audience will never even have noticed it. However once you capture that performance for posterity, it's a different proposition. If a mistake is obvious That resonates with me for sure, some gig I did with a band I was filling in for a few dates.. on this occasion, unusually, someone videoed it, and I did an absolute howler of a bum note, it was a slow bit and the bass was kind of carrying the song at that point too... Oops! Typical, as you rightly say you'd normally get away with it as the moment's gone. You'd definitely have needed to overdub the above Fk-up if it were for public viewing! Anyway the band's certainly long dead by now, so I expect it's thankfully buried ! 😂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NikNik Posted June 8, 2023 Author Share Posted June 8, 2023 17 hours ago, BigRedX said: The concerts that made up Wings Over America (album) and Rock Show (film) were recorded on multi-track tape (probably 24-track) using one of the many mobile studios that were popular for live recordings in the 70s, so having a different mix to that heard FoH with the bass guitar louder would have been simple. How does the mix compare with the audio only version on WOA? Like most "live" albums of the time, various parts were overdubbed afterwards, in the case of WOA specifically the backing vocals, but anything else that required attention would have been touched up if necessary. Both releases were complied from multiple concerts and in the case of Rock Show it is possible that footage from a different performance to the audio was cut to fit, if the best audio and visual performances didn't come from the same gig. Very few "live" recordings of any kind are done direct to stereo, even when they are being broadcast in real time, the broadcast mix will be done separately to the FoH mix, and nearly always recorded to multi-track to allow for the possibility of fixing errors and adjusting the balance at a later date for release or rebroadcast. I totally get that. Initially, I thought it had been overdubbed. Now, I'm not so sure. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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