How much of The Dance was re recorded or "sweetened" in the studio?
 

At 2:11 in this video you can clearly see Stevie step away from the mic (during he line..."whole thing gonna work out right") yet her vocal keeps going. Makes me wonder how much was done after in the studio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5BZzkWXcwc

I always thought she stepped away during that part because of the high note...to me it sounds like her voice leaves the harmony when she steps away :shrug:

No you can clearly hear her still singing. I've also heard 2 Stevie harmonies (silver springs) on the dance stuff. Overdubbing galore!!! :nod:

Something else to consider. Often when shooting live concert footage they shoot more than one night, or they shoot some songs more than once. So it might just be the audio is from one night and that particular shot and the video is from another performance.

edit: now that I watch it her voice does leave when she walks away. She's doing a medium harmony, not the high one.

Most live albums receive a bunch of doctoring before release. There aren't many true live albums.

That could be true, you are right. I still think there is a lot of doctoring going on. If you listen to the Dance track you can hear a thousand Stevie's on some of the tracks. The harmonies on Silver Springs for example. :nod:

I don't hear more than one Stevie on that recording. I do hear Christine, Lindsey, and Stevie's girls.

Some doctoring might have gone on, particularly with little layers of instrumentation, but the vocals are pretty accurate in their gloriously imperfect ways.

I totally agree.

Yes, Stevie has talked abou the 2 nights for this one. And how she saved her SS performance until the end.

And ChiliD has talked about the two nights for the taping of the Mirage dvd and how they were all aloof one night and lovey dovey the other.

Michele

Ken Caillat in Making Rumours said The Dance was completely reworked in the studio and didn't have much "live" to it. Then again, he sounded pretty bitter about not being picked to produce it...

I believe Ken. Fleetwood Mac rarely releases live performances without polishing them up in the studio. It's become a common practice, with artists using current technology to fix and refine the performances.

Even the Fleetwood Mac Live album, while far more raw and authentic than the Dance, had a lot of of studio work done on it. At the time of it's release, I recall Christine describing it as a "warts and all" album. But that's not entirely true.

The Live in Boston CD seems pretty straight forward, but it's likely that it had some studio sweetening.

The Live Rumours World Tour CD included in the recently released Deluxe Rumours box set is somewhat of a revelation. It appears to be an untouched document. Unfortunately. it's not a full show, but a measly 11 songs from three different shows. It reveals how powerful their live performances were -- no sweetening needed!

Oh yeah, def some doctoring..However, it's not as obvious as Live in Boston. There are so many moments there when things don't match, mostly regarding video...different hair styles in the same song, shawl off the shoulder and then right back magically..etc lol

Right. I also had not heard the Tusk riff used onstage before, on the Rumours tour. Effective, I thought.


***
Couple touch-ups during Temporary One, in The Dance, if memory serves.

Take in the auto-tune on Everywhere: "My friends say I'm acting peculiarly"

Is that definitely auto-tune? Christine's voice sometimes sounds naturally 'metallic' I find.

I remember reading that The Dance was touched up a lot. If you look at the piano opening of Silver Springs the notes you hear are totally not the notes from the keys Christine is touching.

I've noticed that with the Silver Springs intro, too. I don't know how much "touching up" that is, rather than just poor video/audio editing.

I think a lot has to do with the vid not locking with the sound on some of the DVD's. I've seen some copies where Christine's piano is perfect, and then some where it's no where near what she's playing. Vocals too on Sweet Girl and a bunch more that drive me Insane.

If memory serves me Stevie is doing two harmonies on Go Your Own Way in the dance version.

Another thing that we have to remember is that it was more than just the five of them performing. Extra guitar and keyboard players, pecusionists, and Stevie's back-up girls were there augmenting the sound. :cool:

There is NO way those guitars on Bleed to Love her are live. No way.

It's rare to say...
I compared several times the tracks of the DVD, the CD, the central channel mixes, and an interesting radio broadcast from the tour, to see the differences, especially between the "final product" (The Dance), and the "original sound" (the radio concert). And well, I saw something. Rhiannon, Silver Springs, there's some things with the backing vocals and the guitars...
And about other songs, yes, sometimes I feel I'm listening more than only one Stevie!

About Live, I'll talk in other thread!

Regards!

The Dance was mixed extremely well - meaning that the sound you hear isn't just from the mics on stage, but from the board in the middle of the room, which had at least 24 tracks.
There were mics all around and over the stage, not just the ones you see on camera.
There were also lots (too many in my opinion) of back up musicians and singers.
So what you get is a very full sounding recording.
I don't think much was added although levels were tweaked when the band felt like you weren't hearing enough guitar or enough vocal here and there.
The editing on the video was pretty lackluster - I wish they had used a different director and editor, so that certainly made some moments feel manufactured.

I only know this because I work from time to time at the facility where the album was mixed.

I'm a film editor and audio mixer I know these things...you can clearly hear multiple vocal overdubs. Listen on headphones to Go your own way, Stevie does at least two harmonies. Bleed to love her guitars are in no way live.

It does have that quality, but if you listen to bootlegs from that era, her voice doesn't have that little jump in it that you hear on The Dance.

I, like Lindsey, can't read music, so I never caught on to the key thing!

Lindsey's voice is nowhere near as strong as it sounds there.