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Source of the TII Vocals

ChanceToDance

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I'm aware that most of the rehearsals don't use live vocals, some come from tours (Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' uses vocals from the Victory tour), others use demos (Billie Jean, Earth Song) and others are a mixture of live and demo vocals (Black Or White), but I'm not sure if the vocals in rehearsals like Smooth Criminal, Beat It and They Don't Care About Us are live or not, so where do all vocals come from?
 
All vocals (in the film) come from different sources.

Of course, they used a lot of dubbing because they wanted also to achieve a higher or lower pitch when that was necessary.

Dubbing is generally a very common practice when it comes to theatrical/video releases of concerts.

They also used pre-existing, older recordings that they later had to digitally manipulate in order to bring a better live experience.

They also had to fill in certain gaps of live singing by inserting pre-existing recorded vocals into those gaps (because Michael Jackson would abruptly stop while singing his lines live in these rehearsals).

They also intentionally left untouched certain parts of songs where Michael Jackson sings fully live.

In some cases, they also used the singer's a cappella vocals (taken either from demos or from the album version of the songs).
 
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin - live vocals from the rehearsals, most likely only from the orange pants day.
Jam - overdubbed with original studio vocals
They Don't Care About Us - overdubbed with original studio vocals
Human Nature - live vocals from the rehearsals
Smooth Criminal - contains a good amount of live vocals but is also partially overdubbed with original studio vocals.
First verse and pre-chorus are overdubbed with studio vocals, the second verse is also overdubbed with studio vocals but contains some live vocals on the end of the phrases:
"So they came in to the outway
It was Sunday, what a black day
Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
Sounding heartbeats, intimidation."
The rest is live.
The Way You Make Me Feel - the slow intro has live vocals from the orange pants rehearsal day, the rest was overdubbed with studio vocals which were pitched down in order to correspond with the lower key of the song. At the end, the live ad-libs are from June 23rd.
J5 Medley - live vocals from the rehearsals, mainly June 23rd.
I Just Can't Stop Loving You - live vocals from the rehearsals
Thriller - overdubbed with original studio vocals.
Beat It - overdubbed with vocals from the Victory Tour.
Black or White - live vocals from June 23rd, the "I'm tired of this devil..." portion may or may not be live since it is sung very clean, yet his microphone seems to move around a lot, so that one may also be overdubbed - with what, would be the question. It doesn't sound like studio or demo vocals. It may also just be live vocals which were mixed very well.
Earth Song - overdubbed with original studio and demo vocals.
Billie Jean - overdubbed with demo vocals but contains some live ad-libs near the end of the song.
Man In The Mirror - overdubbed with original studio vocals but contains some live ad-libs near the end of the song.
 
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dethorro said:
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin - live vocals from the rehearsals, most likely only from the orange pants day.
Jam - overdubbed with original studio vocals
They Don't Care About Us - overdubbed with original studio vocals
Human Nature - live vocals from the rehearsals
Smooth Criminal - contains a good amount of live vocals but is also partially overdubbed with original studio vocals.
First verse and pre-chorus are overdubbed with studio vocals, the second verse is also overdubbed with studio vocals but contains some live vocals on the end of the phrases:
"So they came in to the outway
It was Sunday, what a black day
Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
Sounding heartbeats, intimidation."
The rest is live.
The Way You Make Me Feel - the slow intro has live vocals from the orange pants rehearsal day, the rest was overdubbed with studio vocals which were pitched down in order to correspond with the lower key of the song. At the end, the live ad-libs are from June 23rd.
J5 Medley - live vocals from the rehearsals, mainly June 23rd.
I Just Can't Stop Loving You - live vocals from the rehearsals
Thriller - overdubbed with original studio vocals.
Beat It - overdubbed with vocals from the Victory Tour.
Black or White - live vocals from June 23rd, the "I'm tired of injustice..." portion may or may not be live since it is sung very clean, yet his microphone seems to move around a lot, so that one may also be overdubbed - with what, would be the question. It doesn't sound like studio or demo vocals. It may also just be live vocals which were mixed very well.
Earth Song - overdubbed with original studio and demo vocals.
Billie Jean - overdubbed with demo vocals but contains some live ad-libs near the end of the song.
Man In The Mirror - overdubbed with original studio vocals but contains some live ad-libs near the end of the song.
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This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you for sharing.

It's a shame they didn't use live vocals in TWYMMF, Michael sounded good in the amateur recording....
 
They used LOT of Melodyne, cut and mix from difference rehearsals for every live vocals, you can notice that in J5 Medley,
BOW and Human Nature also, we don't have any idea about how they washed out with pitch correction on there, we won't find any rough material or untouched vocals in the movie as we do everybody know.

The edit work by Michael Prince and the other guy who worked speaking about video and audio edits, for the movie is just amazing to me.
 
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the intro to 'the way you make me feel' sounds extremely robotic, they should have just left it untouched
 
Thanks for this @dethorro

Pretty much confirms what I always thought, there would not be a lot of live vocals in the actual shows only the songs he always did live.
 
filmandmusic said:
Pretty much confirms what I always thought, there would not be a lot of live vocals in the actual shows only the songs he always did live.
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Overdubbing doesn’t equal lip-synching, though. They do that in post-production and in this case it was most likely done to the songs he sang with the least energy.
During the rehearsals he must have sung most of the set live. According to Michael Prince, he was keen on lip-synching less, though it is debatable whether or not he really meant this when he (Michael) said it.
 
Overdubbing would have been necessary for the film for the simple fact that Michael doesn't go all out during rehearsals. Just like at the BAD Tour rehearsal for Smooth Criminal. Throughout most of that he doesn't sing anything or he just mumbles the lyrics.
 
So are the Earth Song vocals dubbed? I assume they are but it was odd that they showed a clip from it at the Conrad Murray trial without saying that.
 
I’m convinced that WBSS uses parts of the re-recording that Michael did in 2009. They don’t sound like his Victory era voice.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
WBSS is all live though...
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Some of it is absolutely dubbed. Listen to the bridge—not only is the tone and sound of his voice different, but the actual recording quality shifts dramatically. It’s definitely taken from another source.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Some of it is absolutely dubbed. Listen to the bridge—not only is the tone and sound of his voice different, but the actual recording quality shifts dramatically. It’s definitely taken from another source.
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Yeah, but the pitch is the same. I assume you mean "You're a vegetable" right? This song has like 3 different bridges anyway. The 2008 vocals are super different. Unless you're saying there is a 2009 recording and that's not a typo?
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Yeah, but the pitch is the same. I assume you mean "You're a vegetable" right? This song has like 3 different bridges anyway. The 2008 vocals are super different. Unless you're saying there is a 2009 recording and that's not a typo?
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I meant the, “Keep your head up high” segment. But yeah, Michael Prince confirmed that he and MJ started re-recording some of the songs for the show, and he specifically said they did “a little bit” of WBSS. So I’m thinking they used that bit.
 
AlwaysThere said:
I meant the, “Keep your head up high” segment. But yeah, Michael Prince confirmed that he and MJ started re-recording some of the songs for the show, and he specifically said they did “a little bit” of WBSS. So I’m thinking they used that bit.
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I would call that a coda/the climax, not a bridge. The bridge is more like "You're a vegetable", and both parts immediately following, the instrument break, and the guitar solo. It's a really crazy song tbh, in the best way.

But anyway, if they did record most of it, then I would definitely be using all of it if I could. Yet, I'm still not entirely convinced. It seems like it could just be live vocals augmented with melodyne, maybe it's from a different day but it doesn't entirely strike me as studio takes.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
I would call that a coda/the climax, not a bridge. The bridge is more like "You're a vegetable", and both parts immediately following, the instrument break, and the guitar solo. It's a really crazy song tbh, in the best way.

But anyway, if they did record most of it, then I would definitely be using all of it if I could. Yet, I'm still not entirely convinced. It seems like it could just be live vocals augmented with melodyne, maybe it's from a different day but it doesn't entirely strike me as studio takes.
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Yeah, I've always considered WBSS totally live. The parts being described don't really sound like studio vocals at all to me. Could be wrong though, of course. They used all different sources for audio in the film so who's to say.
 
dethorro said:
the "I'm tired of this devil..." portion may or may not be live since it is sung very clean, yet his microphone seems to move around a lot, so that one may also be overdubbed - with what, would be the question. It doesn't sound like studio or demo vocals. It may also just be live vocals which were mixed very well.
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afaik the bridge is taken from a HIStory live performance.
 
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