Is
it live, or is it Memorex®?
The point of that old Memorex®
advertising campaign was
that most people couldn't tell the difference between live sound and a
pre-recorded Memorex®
tape.
That's great, unless you pay a high price to hire live music at your party or
wedding, but instead get a high-tech version of a karaoke act. Remember
the band Milli Vanilli? They caused an uproar because they were lip-syncing with
a tape rather than actually singing in their "live" performances. It
turned out they couldn't even sing. Somebody else recorded the tracks for them.
And then there's Ashlee Simpson, caught lip-syncing a supposedly
"live" performance. Sadly,
this is the way many local bands perform. The industry calls them
"sequencer bands." A computer program called a
"sequencer" plays synthesizers and drum machines via MIDI signals (pronounced "middy.") If
you're not a musician, how can you recognize this scam? The
tip-off may be a drummer who's only playing half the drum sounds heard, singers
who are still heard when they turn away from the microphone, or a keyboardist who
takes both hands away in the middle of a song, while his piano is still playing
without him. Advocates
call this state-of-the-art. Sadly, maybe it is. Half
your guests won't even notice. The other half will notice, but may be too polite to say anything
to you. |
