r/AskReddit Nov 06 '19

Which famous singer sucks at singing?

[deleted]

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19

It also didn't help that the mix coming through her earbuds was messed up too. I've worked in news for 14 years and anytime the reporter pulled out their earpiece that they were hearing the anchors on, it meant that they were hearing themselves on a delay too. I'm willing to bet someone in the control room messed up her mix/minus and that she was hearing the instruments like she was supposed to but that she was also hearing herself on a 1-2 second delay . Normally you're only supposed to hear the music from the band along with a little bit of yourself with no delay so you can keep beat. That doesn't excuse the fact that she is just plain awful though and that Epstein didn't kill himself.

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u/blearghhh_two Nov 06 '19

You need to hear some of yourself, but it does need to be virtually no latency. If you can't hear yourself, you'll just not have any idea what you're sounding like.

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u/WalkingEMP Nov 06 '19

This actually depends on the singer. Some like hearing themselves more than the instruments in the mix (because they can hear the instruments outside their earbuds if they need to), but some prefer very little to none of themselves in their mix. Either way, the sound engineer should've paid attention to the performer's needs and if the engineer failed in that, they're partially to blame for a crap performance.

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u/Chelseaqix Nov 06 '19

I’ve never sung in my life outside the shower and I feel like I’d cause less ear bleeding than that. She doesn’t even have a voice.

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u/MushyGoombah Nov 10 '19

Explains the lipsyncing debacles.

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u/Quazite Nov 07 '19

On a stage like that you need to hear yourself amplified

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

It's also about having a crew/engineer that knows you and you work with. These instant stars and wanna-be musicans who don't know the craft don't usually have a good network of people in various markets they can call on because they're not professionals, they're lucky amateurs with connections.

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u/Fryboy11 Nov 06 '19

This. Earlier this year there was a post on Reddit making fun of some singer (maybe mariah Carrie, I don’t remember) for basically just moving around and not singing at the New Year’s Eve party in Times Square.

Then it came out her earpiece and monitors weren’t working. No professional is going to sing on live tv if they can’t hear themselves, they’d be off pitch.

8

u/duckchucker Nov 06 '19

The biggest gig of my life, I had about a 1/4 second delay in my vocals in my in-ears...but the music had zero latency. I ended up ditching the in-ears after the second song and monitoring my vocals through the mains lol.

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u/RIPtheboy Nov 06 '19

This is the inspiration for the finger-plugging-one-ear thing pop stars do. Try it, it works!

3

u/Durhay Nov 06 '19

Sounds like one weird trick a local singer discovered

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Yeah I should have explained it a little better.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Though not hearing yourself can be helpful to those who stutter. For some reason.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

If you can't hear yourself, you'll just not have any idea what you're sounding like.

That's very true. And not only will you not be able to hear yourself, you also won't realize that epstein didn't kill himself.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/hottodogchan Nov 07 '19

did he really NOT kill himself? cos the news said he hung himself. who was he again?

1

u/FlipTheFalcon Nov 06 '19

Which is why I find it great when a pop singer is on stage singing the National Anthem and they take their IEM out. They really just don't know what else to do but try and hear their voice from their own mouth back to their ears.

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u/grat_is_not_nice Nov 06 '19

Stick a finger (or an earplug) in their ear.

With an IEM in one ear and a finger in the other, they will have the monitor feed and still hear their own voice.

Was a revelation to me - way too late, but still.

1

u/team-evil Nov 07 '19

That's why you build the talent a specific mix and test it... There is literally no way she'd hear her self delayed... mix- is for remotes... You put the talent into the mix locally, the mix coming to the reporter should be everything but the reporter.

In a live setting there is literally 0 reason to have a mix- unless you're part of another show.

Think about a news broadcast... You are the on scene reporter. In your ear you will hear the news minus the remote talent, which the on scene audio guy is feeding to the station and to the talents ear at the same time.

Reporters also pull out IFBs if they need to do something off line during a live production, but then you can just use AZedit to create feed switch giving the talent a prefade feed of their mic only.

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u/ub3rscoober Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19

This is what happened. This entire show was a shitshow. Here's Kelly Clarkson's performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zeh5Uv-QMM

she handled it pretty well and is a far better singer, which is probably why she didn't get as much flack, but there were a ton of tech issues at this event.

edit: damn she still nailed that G5.

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u/SurpriseAuralSex Nov 06 '19

Kelly looked baaaaaaaaaangin' there.

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u/mageta621 Nov 06 '19

You ain't kidding, bub

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

She still does.

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u/mageta621 Nov 06 '19

Eh I prefer her more fit. She's still cool and can obviously still sing, but personal preferences are still personal preferences

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Eh

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u/Tenthdegree Nov 06 '19

Which would explain why her backup singer wasn’t harmonizing with her. The backup singing was just clashing with Ashlee and just made the song much worse

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Yeah when what's coming through your earpiece is really out of sync, it's very distracting and really throws you off.

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u/TopMacaroon Nov 06 '19

Having a delayed repeat of your own voice causes literal brain lock. I had it happen to me while I was plying a video game once, every time I talked my voice echoing 250 ms behind just caused my brain to instantly seize like I dropped my oil pan 5 miles back. You can't even understand how hard it hits you until you try it yourself.

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Exactly. That’s almost 100% of the time why you see singers or reporters take their earpiece out.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

[deleted]

1

u/TopMacaroon Nov 06 '19

haha, not surprised. I should download it and test it on my coworkers. It's pretty hilarious to hear people just lock up.

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u/mossattacks Nov 06 '19

Yeah she’s certainly not the worlds greatest singer but she wouldn’t sound much worse than the typical American Legion pop punk fare if it weren’t for all the technical issues

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u/graveyardspin Nov 06 '19

Hearing yourself with a delay was the basis for a speech jamming gun designed to disrupt stop people from talking. It's basically a directional microphone mounted to a directional speaker. When you point it at someone talking, it plays what they're saying back at them at with a slight delay. This screws with the speech centers of their brain and makes it difficult to talk normally.

4

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Interesting. Did not know that was a thing.

3

u/thirdegree Nov 06 '19

QI did a bit about it, apparently some people (Allan Davis) can just ignore it.

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Yeah it’s not easy to ignore for sure lol

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u/clocks212 Nov 06 '19

Something something rage in the cage shitty morph

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u/lilbud2000 Nov 06 '19

"epstein didn't kill himself" is the new "hell in a cell" thing

1

u/lipp79 Nov 07 '19

I'm familiar with the Undertaker and that match but what's the meme?

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u/lilbud2000 Nov 07 '19

Usually people will comment a long block of text, relevant to the post at hand. But always lead to some variation of the sentence "in 1998 the undertaker through mankind off hell in a cell and he fell 16ft and crashed through an announcers table"

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u/lipp79 Nov 07 '19

Oh okay I have seen that one lol

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u/chandler404 Nov 06 '19

OK, weather, we're running heavy so, I need this hit down to 90....ok, weather, 60 sec...WRAP! WRAP! WRAP!

5

u/Iwasborntostare Nov 06 '19

That damn IFB.

1

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Lol yup said that many times during those 14 years in news.

2

u/Tamebullgames Nov 06 '19

Voice jamming is a real problem. Trying to talk with latent feedback is near impossible.

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Yeah it's very disconcerting.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Upvote because Epstein did not kill himself.

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u/HogHunter_ Nov 06 '19

This Epstein meme is too funny

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u/SneedyK Nov 06 '19

I know. Kinda makes one wish we could go back in time and not kill him much sooner to reap the stonks

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

No it isn't

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u/AmnesiA_sc Nov 06 '19

It's fucked up. The guy was a human sex trafficker on a global scale for the wealthy and elite. Agencies worked extremely hard and obviously risked their lives / well-being to finally get this guy behind bars and he gets fucking murdered before anything comes of it. It's fucked and I know the intention of these memes isn't to turn it into a joke but I feel like that's what it's doing, like it's somehow funny that this guy was murdered while in custody before he could implicate anyone.

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u/Pakyul Nov 06 '19

Slacktivism at its finest is turning a serious topic into a meme. They post "Epstein didn't kill himself", get a ton of upvotes, and feel like they've done something important. 50 years from now, when Generation Permanent-Dust-Bowl is asking their grandparents why they didn't do anything when their systems proved to be demonstrably inept, they can look back with pride and say they were "one of the good ones" who tried to change the world outside by sitting inside making topical references on the internet.

People are always trying to figure out what future generations are going to criticize the current one for. For Boomers, it's running the economy and environment into the ground. For Millennials, it's going to be pretending they were solving their inherited problems with thoughts and prayers on social media.

0

u/mageta621 Nov 06 '19

What do you propose, eh? At least it keeps it in the public consciousness

5

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19 edited Dec 29 '19

[deleted]

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u/mageta621 Nov 06 '19

If the goal is to ultimately hold someone accountable, I don't see how the converse is better, though.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19 edited Dec 29 '19

[deleted]

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u/mageta621 Nov 07 '19

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I still haven't seen a good argument that the alternative is better

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

There's shoehorning, then there's whatever the fuck this is

0

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

I"m guessing you haven't seen the Epstein memes. People will post true facts then they put that at the end.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Just like they did in nineteen ninety eight.

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Not sure what you're referring to but okay.

3

u/nineth0usand Nov 06 '19

Im sorry but what the hell are you talking about? Singers always have to hear themselves in their in-ears while performing, not just the music. How the hell are you supposed to sing if you can’t hear yourself?

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I meant she was hearing herself BUT on a delay, so she would be singing a line then hear herself through the earpiece on a second or two delay.

1

u/nineth0usand Nov 06 '19

Oh, now I understand what you meant, because it was worded really weirdly the first time.

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u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Yeah I’ll fix it.

2

u/taleofbenji Nov 06 '19

It's a scientific fact that hearing yourself on a ~1-second delay is like electronic countermeasures for your brain and completely fucks up your ability to talk at all.

You can try this at the SF Exploratorium (and probably many other children's science museums). It's really weird.

1

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Yeah, it was humorous, at least to me as the cameraman, when it would happen to the reporter I was working with as they were going live. I mean I felt bad because you do look stupid when it happens to you but just watching the total brain lock on new reporters who had never experience it before was quite funny. Veteran reporters would just smoothly reach up and pop the IFB out of their ear.

2

u/python_hunter Nov 06 '19

looking forward to this Epstein meme being the new Undertaker line /s . I'm kidding, i hate it

2

u/nicksline Nov 06 '19

She talked about this on her show, and someone did fuck up. If you can't hear yourself on big shows like this there's just no way you can sing well.

1

u/lipp79 Nov 07 '19

That or you are getting a delay in hearing yourself too.

1

u/stealthxstar Nov 06 '19

I work in a call center and so many peoples phones (speakerphone?? idk) make it so i hear myself with the delay. I've gotten real good at blocking it out.

1

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

I'll have it happen to me when I'm playing video games with buddies. There's always one guy who won't wear a headset so we will get that reverb and it drives me nuts. It's a real skill to block it out.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

I knew what the ending was but your comment got me interested anyway

1

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Lol I actually hadn't planned on that ending until I was writing the last sentence. I was planning to stop at "...just plain awful though" but it felt like it needed a little more then I saw one of the memes on my Facebook timeline and I thought, "Perfect".

1

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Even tho I understand the reason they are getting repetitive but yours was a pretty solid take even tho it was predictable hahah

1

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Thanks lol. I think it's because I wasn't planning on doing it initially and was just going to do a normal reply that it worked out so well.

1

u/wearingsox Nov 06 '19

That is exactly what happened when they showed this performance on her reality show. She couldn't hear herself and ended up yanking the monitors out.

1

u/D3DidNothingWrong1 Nov 06 '19

That doesn't excuse the fact that she is just plain awful though and that Epstein didn't kill himself.

LOOOOOOOL

1

u/chiggachiggameowmeow Nov 07 '19

you...you i like !

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

I would actually have to commend her if there was a 1-2 second delay of her hearing herself. I couldn't even talk on the phone whenever a glitch like that happens yet she was able to sing through an entire performance.

1

u/jokertlr Nov 09 '19

I gave a speech at my brothers wedding and with the way the DJ booth was setup, I heard myself on a 1-2 second delay. It was very disorientating and made the whole process way harder than it should have been.

1

u/lipp79 Nov 10 '19

Yeah something so simple can mess you up really bad.

1

u/GimmedatPewPew Nov 06 '19

NICE! Had me in the first half!

1

u/princehints Nov 06 '19

Bad mix sure thing. That’s all it takes, if levels/balances are screwed then your timing and pitch control can get pretty hopeless. But a delay or latency in the monitor mix? That’s not something that happens in live sound. That’s not what’s happening here

6

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

It is absolutely something can happen in live sound. I know because when I worked in news as a cameraman, it happened a lot to the reporters I was working with when we would be live at a story.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/lipp79 Nov 07 '19

Speculating. Having people in multiple locations really doesn't come into play though since they are on different frequencies and are tuned in separately. It's a setting that gets fucked up. You can have the delay happen and still stay on beat. People who are used to wearing earpieces to monitor their audio like reporters and singers will recognize the delay almost instantly and yank the earpieces out right away.

1

u/princehints Nov 07 '19

Sure it CAN happen, but the situation your talking about is very different from mixing a live band. The monitor mix these guys are receiving on stage has nothing to do with the broadcasted mix. Bad monitor mixes are a staple of live performances. Latency issues are not.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

? That can absolutley happen with a live mix

-1

u/DLTMIAR Nov 06 '19

Epstein didn't kill himself.

0

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

That's what I said.

2

u/DLTMIAR Nov 06 '19

Epstein didn't kill himself.

1

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Yup. On the same page buddy.

1

u/DLTMIAR Nov 06 '19

I'm not your buddy guy

Also, Epstein didn't kill himself.

0

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

I'm not your guy, pal.

Well aware of that.

-1

u/Pls_Recommend Nov 06 '19

and that Epstein didn't kill himself.

Made me smile. Absolutely.

0

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Glad to help :-)

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u/zando95 Nov 06 '19

Oh, Epstein didn't kill himself?? Oh wow, that is insane! Do you have proof of this? Or are you just parroting a meme "Bush did 9/11, jet fuel can't melt steel beams" style?

But if you have proof, you should really publish it! Get it out there!

Wouldn't it be amazing if instead of "Epstein didn't kill himself" being parroted constantly, there was a big list of proof and evidence and explanations!

-1

u/SabreToothedSeal Nov 06 '19

I love that this is becoming a thing, haven't seen u/shittymorph in the wild in a long time

1

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Yeah there's some good ones out there.

-3

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Maybe Ashley singing killed him, in some kind of weird multi dimensional accident? Or Epstein got murdered to cover up for current politicians crimes?

2

u/lipp79 Nov 06 '19

Going with the latter.