There are loads of people here in the music industry/band business that have told me loads of times that Chester uses voice modulation pedals to get the "screaming" that he does. I believe that this is not correct. I haven't seen Linkin Park live yet, so I don't really now. They say that the way Chester's sound changes during the concert, is proof that he, in fact, does use voice modulation and distortion pedals. What do you guys think about this?
A lot of good singers are inconsistent live. For instance, last time I saw Alexisonfire Dallas sounded great at some points and like he was drunk at others. That's pretty much the same as Chester. Sometimes he sounds awful, sometimes he sounds at least as good as he does on record. Regardless of whether he actually uses auto-tuning or anything like that it's not like he's incapable of replicating it.
Exactly. Chester has proven many times that he's capable of matching the sound on the record when performing live.
Chester's vocals ARE run through a pitch shifter, as per a 2007 magazine interview with LP's sound crew (which I can't locate currently, unfortunately), but it's not used in the typical auto-tune/pitch manipulation sense. It's used for the filtered/distortion effects that are present on his screams. And "recreating the album vocals" is precisely why they do that - Chester's vocals are manipulated with various effects/EQ presets and whatnot in the studio, so if they want to recreate that sound live, they need to do the same thing in that setting as well. It's not really a matter of Chester "not being able to cut it" in a live setting, but Chester by himself can't just magically recreate the post-production work that's done to his studio vocals.
That's pretty interesting. I like Chester's voice live much more though, just because it's more natural, and he can scream a lot better sometimes than on CD.
You can notice a lot of effects on his voice live. The better the sound, the more obvious it is. For example, some kind of delay or echo is used to make the scream on Given Up last longer. And as for the studio, besides voice duplication, I believe a lot of effects are used. It's just normal. Other than that, in MTM it's a lot less obvious that his voice has been altered. At least in most of the tracks it sound more raw. Or maybe I should listen to it more
I have no respect for them if they genuinely do try to use effects in order to make it sound like they're giving a better performance than they actually are.
I am aware that quite a lot of bands use that sort of thing to some extent. I'm just saying, if any kind of musician has to have their performance altered to utter perfection as they play live I don't really see the point. Maybe LP specifically don't try to be like that, but it was meant as a general statement. And if that means I'm not allowed to like a lot of popular music then so be it.
I think the fact that LP's releases of audio from their concerts are edited and have mistakes fixed, while not reflecting well on their honesty in what they release, is a fairly good indicator that their shows aren't so effect-laden that they sound "perfect." I know they use some vocal effects (the aforementioned filtered stuff, plus some typical echo/delay stuff), and some of their samples (of the "just press play" type) are triggered by one of their crew members from offstage, but other than that there isn't a whole lot of trickery going on. Chester doesn't really sound like the greatest live singer in the world anyway, even with whatever effects he uses he's still prone to going flat and having his voice crack, so it's not like there's some Milli Vanilli shit going on.
Yeah, it was just a matter of me putting my foot in my mouth a couple of posts ago, or so to speak. I wasn't actually accusing them of trying that sort of thing on. If they do they clearly aren't very good at it, haha. I'd just like to clarify that I'm not so asinine to the point where I can't grasp musicians having to use anything of the sort, but I stand by my last post in regards to those who really may as well not be playing live.
I remember watching an interview with Chester about this somewhere. He says the kind of effects they use for his voice are like echo's and stuff. I think the song they were using an example of is when they were practicing High Voltage or And One, one of the two. It was on YouTube a long time ago.
I don't think they're the type of band to sort of "cheat" to make people think they're better than they are. I just think they use effects because they think it sounds a lot better. I mean it's not like they're too cautious or anything with how they use the echoes live. You can hear it clearly on say Given Up, and The Little Things Give You Away.
I've listened to the CDs. I've seen them live. I understand why they have to do this. It bothers me, but not all that much... Nobody's perfect.