hey chris liepe here i have received the original studio multi-tracks not just the isolated vocals
but the other instruments and the dry isolated vocals for michael jackson's earth song
thank you well connected friend in the music industry who will go unnamed i'm very excited
i have not opened these up and listened to them yet we're gonna go through these together
we'll listen to primarily the vocals but you also will get a chance i'll get a chance to hear like
the timbre of the bass guitar and the the synths and and other aspects that
we really wouldn't be able to hone in on uh if it weren't for these these original tracks so excited
and if you've watched other michael jackson analyses that i've done on the channel i'm
not going to be stopping and singing and discussing really how to sing like michael
jackson in this video i've done a lot of those on on other songs on michael jackson on the channel
this one we're gonna be digging in and just noticing enjoying appreciating the arrangement
i'll talk about some things here and there that he does with his voice or make some observations
about a particular part of the song but this is going to be much more just a hey let's let's
enjoy this what about sunrise what about rain what about all the things that you said we were to gain
what about killing fields
i love that we are able to hear this without any effects uh we get to hear a little bit of the room
sound in there uh let's see what the base is up to the beginning here good see what about sun
what about rain
super just consistent and dark to gain
what about killing fields is there a time
one of the qualities i i love about michael jackson's quiet voice is he tends to front load
his his phrases where he he gives more up front and then his vibrato is almost the the result
of him pulling back whereas a lot of vocalists will kind of lean in and develop this vibrato
but he has a sort of sheepish vibrato thing happening that's by by taking support away
it's cool what about all the things that you said was yours and mine
did you ever stop to notice all the blood we've shed before
did you ever stop this notice interesting all right i never noticed that on the original did you
ever stop this notice did you ever stop to snotus you don't notice those things when
you're not when you're listening to just the full mix or as much anyway this crying earth this week
nice imprecise doubling really neat
stomp sweeping
that's in the vocal track i heard from the from the guy who gave me these tracks he said that they
would put michael on a platform and they would mic the his feet when when he was performing
in the studio and so you'd get that rhythmic like body motion thing in there and so that's probably
partly what we're hearing is him on the platform and that platform may be miked super cool on it
some background vocals here along with some synth kind of cool
wow fun to hear those separate
piano
oh this is so fascinating notice the loose doubling here almost as if he
was not in the same headspace when he was when he was doubling these
they're intentionally very gangy along with these background vocals it fits perfect
all right listening on what have we done to the world look what we've done
what about all the peace that you pledge your only son honor what the orchestra's doing there
i'm gonna have fun just like experimenting my own voice over these tracks this is super super neat
oh i'm what about all the dreams that you said was yours in mind did you ever stop to notice
all the children dead from war did you remember not to notice
this crying earth just the background or just the uh the voices track whatever that is
huh interesting they labeled it voices
well that's why but it has the symptom there too interesting piano
the drums coming in right there let's see what
what a gated snare
thing at the interesting artifact or i'm sure they did it on purpose but
it's like a maybe a product of the reverb listen to how relatively dry the kick
it's like the kick has a pre-delay reverb or something on it
and and then you've got that snare that's really cool uh let's hear the just the vocals
with with those drums that'd be kind of fun this crying earth this week
that was super cool listen how he stomped at this show snapped all right talking
he did like a pre-drum fill with his with his uh mannerisms that's so cool
and you can hear him going at it on the on the rhythm here too
so cool
you can hear the headphone bleed in there you can hear you can hear the percussion that he's adding
with his with his body that is so cool one of the things that's nice about this particular set
of files is it's really high quality some of the stuff i find on the internet isn't near this high
fidelity so you can't hear some of these details but we can hear the details this is awesome
oh yeah i wanted to hear what the bass was doing here uh just just the bass and and bass for now
i wondered
here all the fret buzz it sounds very direct it's kind of wumpy sounding
there's not you know like but listen to the context of the mix
it's like just what it needs this is a good lesson in
it's not necessarily how it sounds by itself and this goes for vocals too
but any of the instruments that we're recording right like that's not a good sounding bass if
you listen to it out of context it's all about the context it's what the song needs
even that
there's not there's an octave peddler pedal on there octave effect that's really neat sounding
never ever would i have uh heard that and just now i'm noticing the octave thing
wouldn't be surprised if some of that was was overdubbed also maybe like the body percussion
but maybe not given what my my buddy said i love his transitions to his head voice here with that h
i used to dream i used to glance beyond the stars i know i don't know where we are oh no i know
i love his gritty rock voice
and how rhythmic his breathing is even in the midst of amping up his compression
nice doubling
some pitch problems oh no oh some acoustic guitar let's see what that's doing
i said pitch problems but i really mean oh thank goodness it's not pitch corrected it's really
really raw and wonderful and it sounds great in the context of the whole mix i mean listen
it's real and especially when he puts that stuff in
beautiful key change looks like there's some choir vocals coming soon
listen to how imprecise these doubles are this is this is a choir method when it comes to the
doubling of these vocals sometimes we want to double really really precisely to give this sort
of one voice layered one voice approach that is not the approach that he's taking here and it's
a production choice really because we also have the choir we have these other voices going on
and and it gets bigger and bigger towards the end i'm anxious to to
pick apart when the arrangement gets a little bit more full
wow okay let's let's check out what this is doing
nice
what
that is special to be able to hear that by itself that is really fun
could make our own arrangement of it just by like strategically bringing in
some of the stuff like you know like one of those loop thingies
is
that it's kind of fun to mess with i mean i would go in through and do like real mutes if
i was gonna do that for real but kind of fun to play with the arrangement a little bit and and uh
get a little bit more intimate with why they chose to do certain things
what an incredible ending to a song all right listening on what a bad name
his his grit here is just so wonderful i i've talked about how to get this approach in other
videos on michael jackson make sure that you're keeping your your compression high
i don't want to get too much into the specific vocal techniques in this video
but i just wanted to call it out for what it is simply amazing
today
and the the call and answer uh passion
behind this you know we've got that constant where he's leaning into the choir
and then he's answering it's it's wonderful you don't hear music as much like this anymore and
and certainly i can appreciate it more because of these isolated tracks
trails
the foot stomping is much more pronounced i'm going to bring in a couple of things here
we got the tambourine right there
the campfire version
that's an interesting tonality a very different character than
some of the other stuff that he did in there
there bass player joined them
wow wow wow i've got a few more of these too from my special well-connected friends so stay tuned to
the channel for more of these and be sure to like and subscribe to my channel and check out all the
other videos that i've done on learning to sing learning to discover new things about your voice
and yes i've done quite a bit on michael jackson as well we'll see you for more