For this prompt, i immediately thought of several examples from the band Steam Powered Giraffe, which was one of my favorite groups during high school.
- Realistic: Make Believe featuring guitarist and singer Michael Reed
- This recording of “make-believe” includes all of the mistakes, voice breaks, and general sense of messiness that tends to come with a live Steam Powered Giraffe recording. I think some of the audience effects might have been filled in later, but the recording itself is accurate to the band playing live without any touching up of parts or parts being recorded separately.
- Hyperealistic: Clockwork Vaudeville
- The “clockwork vaudeville” song sounds like it might be live due to the audience cheers, but I happen to know that this album was not made live and was created because the band needed a live album to sell at their gigs, but had not yet had an opportunity to create a live tour album (their only regular gig at the time was at an outdoor stage at a zoo) so the band recorded their songs in the studio and added the audience effects in, even recording themselves shouting extra things their typical audience might say, such as a muffled “I love you, Michael Reed!” from the ‘crowd’ when the guitarist takes the stage.
- Surrealist: Lyin’ Awake with soloist Bryan Barbarin
- “Lyin’ awake” has what sounds like a drum kit and loops underneath it, as well as other synthetic instruments and layered vocals. I can tell that the main singer, Bryan Barbarin, is not singing ‘live’ – at one point in his rap I can hear him with other band members vocalizing fills underneath the rap. I also know that in the last few years the band lost several of their former ‘live’ instrument players, such as their drummer, their pianist, and their sound engineer, so it makes sense that they would be shifting towards a pre-recorded or digital music to help fill in the missing players’ parts.
Music Tech 2023 