If he mimes the vocals where does he get the tapes?

[svenoaks]

If he's miming most/much/the hard parts of The Wall where do the tapes come from? It doesn't sound like his 80-81 voice and some of those songs haven't been played live for a long time. Do you think they've been recorded recently? Just curious.

[Keith Jordan]

Welcome to the forum and excellent question!

Perhaps he sang them recently but in a lower key and used "technology" to put the key up a few notches so he can reach the high notes that his older vocal chords must find difficult!

[Hudini]

It's very hard to shift the key of a recorded voice and keep the natural colour of the voice. If Roger sang a part in a lower key in studio and altered it in order to get a higher pitch, it wouldn't sound like his voice anymore. It wouldn't be noticeable if he shifted it at most 1-2 semitones, but anything more would alter the colour of his voice significantly, and singing 1-2 semitones down in a studio only to get it shifted to original pitch for a pre-recorded playback tape makes no sense. If that was the case, it would be much, much easier for the whole band to just play the song one step down.

[siderealxxx]

I still don't understand where this notion that he's pre-recorded lots of parts comes from...

I saw the show twice and was near the front for one of them and I never once detected any pre-recorded vocal parts (except for the loud-hailer part in worms which is obvious).

What has changed, is some of the harmony/backing parts which will often take the higher part leaving Roger to do the lower (where it used to be the other way around). No problem with that though, still sounds great.

Roger still has the range he once did, the problem for him will be repeating it night after night... it's not sensible/realistic (his voice sounded tired every time he spoke). So if he did pre-record, it would be recent recordings done especially for the show and he probably would have been able to do it without too much problem. I'm not convinced though... give the man some credit!

[Keith Jordan]

I may be making this up - I cannot quite remember you see - but I think Roger himself did an interview last year in which he said some parts were pre-recorded.

Anyone care to remember more than that?

[svenoaks]

I'm not entirely sold on him lip synching everything either...Its just that some of the parts sound "too good to be true" given what we've heard from him since his voice 'blew out' in the early-mid 80's.

[Keith Jordan]

He is not miming the whole show, just little bits here and there I believe. That doesn't matter anyway. The whole show as one experience is what matters. How it comes about it very secondary, in my view.

[siderealxxx]

Absolutely, I don't see it as a big deal if the odd bit is pre-recorded in a show like this. There's enough amazing things going on before your ears and eyes as it is!

(Gutted I missed this for what would have been my third time the other night in Manchester - just wasn't feasible in the end > Gr!)

[mosespa]

I may be making this up - I cannot quite remember you see - but I think Roger himself did an interview last year in which he said some parts were pre-recorded.

Anyone care to remember more than that?

It's likely that he was referring specifically to the megaphone bit in Waiting For The Worms...also, it sounds like the "You!! Yes you!! Stand still Laddie!!" bit is pre-recorded, but with a beat of pause taken out of it.

I've seen two performances of it and that part was identical each time.

I have to say that while I haven't actually sat down with an instrument and worked it all out, it does kind of sound like things like One Of My Turns and Don't Leave Me Now are being played in a different key.

[MY RRRRS]

BASF ?

[sydcrainbop]

In one of the close-zoom video recordings, (I forgot which one) his mouth was closed when we hear "If I had my way, I'd have all of you shot!" I don't believe that Roger would lip-sync an entire song, but he has said in interviews that this tour is a challenge for his voice, and that he was doing special vocal exercises to survive the tour. It doesn't matter to me if he lip-syncs a few lines that are no-longer of his ability.

[kelly clarks9n]

hey - you know he aint the greatest singer in the world and at his age the pipes would be getting a bit rusty- maybe he has a voice double if he is miming. i saw him when he came to Perth in 2007 and i really couldn't tell. does it really matter as long as he is convincing - it is a show and he did write most of the material - it is certainly his concept - it is him on the stage.

you will all be complaining he doesn't play all the instruments next.

[my breakfast.]

To answer OP's question in the thread title, it is possible Roger can sing all the Wall parts on a good day. Get a day with the right ambient temperature, humidity and he hasn't been singing the whole show and all those hard parts might still flow out of him. Get him in a studio with a click track and a few instruments to guide him and he might have got them that way. Pro tools could tune him if some notes were too wayward.

Not sure what motives drive the whole Roger-uses-backing-tapes conspiracy thing. I think it is agreed he did for the DSOTM tour but maybe not so much with the Wall tour.

[Idisaffect]

Not sure what motives drive the whole Roger-uses-backing-tapes conspiracy thing.

Crew members, for one.

[Peter Beasley]

An excellent question and a golden opportunity missed by Kirsty Young on 'Desert Island Discs'.

Surely no one thinks Rog is singing the long sustained note at the end of 'Bring the Boys Back Home'? He might be adding to it, but the main voice you hear is the original studio recording.