Should cast recordings be done live? — Page 2

NO! Cast albums should not be recorded live.

While live recordings capture the excitement of theatrical events and concert versions of shows, in general cast albums are better when recorded under the controlled conditions of a studio.

If some cast albums sound lifeless it is mainly because the album producer has failed to encourage the performers to create the excitement of a live performance through their voices alone. In fact many recordings done live in the theatre sound flat because the visual aspects of the performances are missing.

Many times when a cast album sounds lifeless, check the producer credits. Mostly you will see that the album was produced by the authors who have little or no experience producing cast albums. But songwriters think they are good album producers and most times they are not.

The greatest cast albums are produced by people who understand that a recording should so more than just document what is heard on stage. It needs an energy and vitality to compensate for missing visual elements. To do this a song may be done at a different tempo, or re-routined to weave in key bits of dialogue from other parts of the script. Sometimes the orchestration needs to be adjusted, or the order of the songs changed to provide a more cohesive audio performance.

Thomas Sheppard made a number of changes to the cast album of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. The show opens with spoken dialogue with the musical accompaniment sneaking in underneath. Sheppard changed this to begin the record with music. It is NOT how the show plays on stage, but it makes a better record.

In addition, the sound quality is always better when recorded in studio. The major Broadway houses were never designed to be recording studios, as feeds from the soundboard (you can heard on existing bootlegs) reveal. While applause may give a "you-are-there" feel to the record, after repeated listens the audience responses, along with minor flubs become tiresome.

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on live cast recordings i usually entertain myself at the end of songs by trying to pick out people who clap or scream funny. like an unnecessary "WOO" after the applause has died down or something like that lol.

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I just want to say YES YES YES a thousand times over to frontrowcentre's post. I have little to add.

Some of us on here would like cast albums to be "reference materials", meticulously documenting a production that will only exist for a short amount of time. But the reality is that recording shows is a commercial medium all its own. It has to make a good recording independent of the show, and simply taking the audio feed from a live performance usually can't do that (unless the show relies a lot on sheer energy and is generally loud and not terribly nuanced - and I don't say that as a bad thing).

But even live recordings are edited within an inch of their life - multiple takes from multiple performances edited together and lots of things fixed in post-production. (And if it's done well, you'll have no idea anything was done. A brilliant audio editor is the one no one ever notices.) In the end you spend more time in mixing/editing trying to get a live recording into shape than you would simply recording it under controlled conditions.

The German Mamma Mia cast recording was recorded during a performance and it sounds absolutely fantastic (it even includes the curtain speech). But a show like Mamma Mia is a better candidate for a live performance I guess.