Courtney Love Isolated live vocal and Guitar.....ouch

lustycourtier

http://youtu.be/v-xUwDARVb4 

 

 full story

 

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/courtney-loves-isolated-vocal-and-guitar-tracks-are-just-even-worse-than-youd-imagine

vasselmeyer

That is absolutely appalling. I though it was one of those "shreds" videos at first until I read your link underneath.

If you haven't seen them, here's a shredded Hall and Oates "Maneater":

Jalapeno

All could be explained by crappy foldback, but sounds awful though

dafuzz

Guitar sounds shit, but she's probably waaaaaaaaay way down in the mix and only really uses the guitar as a prop.

Her vocals are pretty punk rock and as good as I'd expect from her live. I'd rather that than a load of mimed / auto-tuned fakery.

IanSavage

I used to think her tirades against Dave Grohl were totally unjustified and pathetic, but now that I've seen this I realise what a visionary talent she is compared to Grohl and how totally within her rights to disparage actual other musicians at will.

ThePrettyDamned

This makes me feel more confident about my guitar playing ability.  

guitarfishbay

dafuzz said:

Guitar sounds shit, but she's probably waaaaaaaaay way down in the mix and only really uses the guitar as a prop.

Her vocals are pretty punk rock and as good as I'd expect from her live. I'd rather that than a load of mimed / auto-tuned fakery.

Pretty much what I thought about it too.

She's clearly not a good guitarist but that isn't the mix that the audience heard - if they even heard her guitar at all.

ICBM

Her guitar wasn't in the mix if that's even her guitar at all.

Because if it was, being a Rickenbacker, when she wasn't playing it but it was just hanging there, it would be feeding back or picking up sound from the stage, and none of that is audible. I don't actually think the guitar track is real at all, because I would expect *some* extra background noise on it… and there's at least one part where what you see doesn't match what you hear, when she takes her hand away and the same chord keeps ringing, at 1'11".

Vocal wasn't too bad for a live mix with high stage levels and fairly poor monitoring, ie typical small club.

I'm no particular fan of hers but I think that's a mixture of undue criticism and possible fakery.

Grunfeld

ICBM said:

Her guitar wasn't in the mix if that's even her guitar at all.

Because if it was, being a Rickenbacker, when she wasn't playing it but it was just hanging there, it would be feeding back or picking up sound from the stage, and none of that is audible. I don't actually think the guitar track is real at all, because I would expect *some* extra background noise on it… and there's at least one part where what you see doesn't match what you hear, when she takes her hand away and the same chord keeps ringing, at 1'11".

Good spot with that ringing chord, seems suspicious. 

But on the feedback issue, if the guitar had a tight noisegate would it be okay? 

(I've got a Shereton which can be lively through a Big Muff but is mostly okay if I gate it.)

RocknRollDave

Do I even need to listen to this? It's not like some auto-tuned pop starlet whose pitch-perfect vocals are going to be exposed as a sham, is it? It's Courtney Love. How good was it ever going to be?

lustycourtier

ICBM said:

Her guitar wasn't in the mix if that's even her guitar at all.

Because if it was, being a Rickenbacker, when she wasn't playing it but it was just hanging there, it would be feeding back or picking up sound from the stage, and none of that is audible. I don't actually think the guitar track is real at all, because I would expect *some* extra background noise on it… and there's at least one part where what you see doesn't match what you hear, when she takes her hand away and the same chord keeps ringing, at 1'11".

Vocal wasn't too bad for a live mix with high stage levels and fairly poor monitoring, ie typical small club.

I'm no particular fan of hers but I think that's a mixture of undue criticism and possible fakery.

is it not the A and D string ringing out?

ICBM

Grunfeld said:

Good spot with that ringing chord, seems suspicious. 

But on the feedback issue, if the guitar had a tight noisegate would it be okay? 

(I've got a Shereton which can be lively through a Big Muff but is mostly okay if I gate it.)

Not sure. I think you'd still hear noise and probably a change of sound when the gate is open, given how high the stage volume clearly is and how well my Rickenbacker picks up outside noise! I don't hear anything like that. Not sure it's conclusive, but it doesn't sound quite right to me.

If it is genuine, it's a feed from a guitar she was just using as a prop, since none of the wrong chords are audible in the full version. In which case whether she plays badly or not is irrelevant - in fact, if she's just playing a guitar she thinks is muted and doesn't care about accuracy, it's quite good!

The whole thing seems like a spiteful and unnecessary dig, to me. The full mix version is fine, just sounds like a rough and ready punky band playing a bar gig. What's new?

lustycourtier

Its also 4 years old, when she first started gigging again. She's breathless, here phrasing is terrible, so her playing I imagine was same!