........ Yup! that about sums up this series. I was particularly annoyed when the judges applauded 5AM when you couldn't actually hear them sing, and I'm pretty sure Matt didn't sing live at all.

IF 5 After Midnight were miming, the recording wasn't enhanced then. The vocals together didn't sound good at all.

I thought they sang (very badly) on most of it , but when it went to the high stuff, they did not sing a note. If they did, you couldn't hear it at all.

The short breakdown section was awful, not just because it was the first bit of singing you could hear.

Matt was miming. Probably pre recorded sometime in the day.

How was matt not singing live!?

At points his mouth and the lyrics were most definitely not in the same place. I've dealt with video latency before but that wasn't it.

The music should be live and raw, no backing vocals and no autotune. If I went to a gig and the act mimed i'd want my money back.

Depends who you went to see. I knew a chap who went on tour with a big American singer and she never sang live. It was pre-recorded band and all in the afternoon, re-mixed and then everyone mimed in the evening.

There was nothing suspect about it - he was definitely singing live.

I actually thought Saara may be miming but Matt looked very dodgy too in that regard

Watch it again, and listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZYoSLkDJ1g

I'd feel cheated if I paid good money to watch a live show and the songs weren't performed live, for me that's the whole point of watching a act live. I've seen hundreds of live shows and thankfully I don't recall anyone ever miming.

No one will beat this piece of miming on The X Factor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-HsM6NA4eE&=

There was no evidence of autotune or vocal FX on any of the performances that I can see. I've cut vocals lots when producing music there's a very big difference. Matt's vocal output matched the movements of his mouth and the microphone and he was off key a few times. There's no reason to believe that the X Factor would intentionally prerecord off key vocals and have them later mime to it. This is just conspiracy theory stuff again.

if Honey G had a CD playing & she was miming to it, then someone kicked it then it started skipping, we wouldn't notice

....... would you know, some of them are very good at it. Really depends who you went to see. Some of the big stars have been sold to the public on their 'perfection' and the public don't understand that it all goes wrong sometimes it doesn't matter how good you are.

...... I also happen to know something about this subject and at the very least there was a mass of fx all over the evening, not just Matt. With respect if you knew how live setups are done these days I doubt that you would have argued with me. My contention is that the whole program is dishonest, how can we tell if someone is a good singer if, the sound is processed or vocals are smothered in track of BV's.

She's mic'd but Dermot keeps passing his mic to her so she can speak.

....... I'm not laughing, honest. She was miming but Dermot passing her the mic means nothing. It would take too long to explain why. If someone can do it more succinctly than me then please feel free.

Thanks for that link.definitely live and reminded me again he gave the best performance of the night.

Matt's first audition sounds like his true vocals. They don't sound perfect (studio like) but he still sounds very good though. I think it would be rare to find someone with a voice that was pitch perfect without any computerised enhancements helping them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTbWSBzP-H8

What sorts FX were used on the vocals one by one? What do you mean by processed? This is very popular vernacular in armchair punditry but no one explains what they mean.

My assessment:

EQ: The vocals will be put through an equaliser to cancel out most of the frequencies up to the 200hz mark (depending on vocal weight/class/ or male/female) and accentuate higher frequncies that are more pleasant. Ultimately it's necessary to cancel out lower frequencies that clash with instrumental or reduce the overall mid frequency tones. If you call this processing, then yes, the vocals are processed but so is every single vocal you hear on TV that is performed with professional equipment.

'Effects': As for vocal effects, there was no evidence of that whatsoever on Matt's vocal. No vocal doubling, clearly no pitch correction (multiple flat notes, unless the attack on the pitch correction was so long that it might as well not be there) and no vocal modulations.

For 5AM, they may have used vocal doubling on the group vocals because there's only three of them and the harmonic richness is limited by their group size. I don't think they did otherwise we would have heard a larger presence of their vocals during the group sections where the backing vocals were very present.

Reverb and echo were used modestly on some performances including Matt's but I don't think this is trickery. This is simply used to blend with the track. Vocal modulation was used and complained about to Ofcom when Kitty Brucknell performed on the show but I haven't seen it since.

Compression: It's pretty commonplace to improve dynamics and make lyrics easier to understand. It also prevents the vocal from bouncing up and down volume-wise. It will be done on nearly every live performance you hear and if you're a sound engineer that doesn't do that, then you're missing a trick.

I'm interested to hear what specific examples of 'processing' you've heard

I was confused as to why Ryan was allowed to have back up vocals during his sing off. Surely the point of it is so it's only the act's voice and nothing else? I can't recall anyone else using back up for their save me song.

Precisely. Sam had no backing vocals at all. It's as if they wanted him to come across better than Sam. Also, strangely, he sounded a bit more in tune as well. Unless they gave him a song that matched his not exactly in tune voice, which made it easier for him to sing it in tune.