dreadnought

I love this performance of "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, but is it real, or were tracks overdubbed in the studio after the video was made?


CSNY 2000-03-30 Toronto - "Ohio" - YouTube

Freebase Dali

I think just by listening to it, it's pretty obvious that it wasn't dubbed with a studio recording. If you're basing your inquiry on the fact that the video is not synced with the audio very well, then fear not, because that can happen in a variety of scenarios in regard to the recording, editing and rendering of a video.

dreadnought

I'm not bothered by it being out of sync. At one or two points, though, I'm not sure the lead guitar is playing what I am hearing. I guess my problem is that it is so good, I am skeptical some of the music wasn't dubbed in AFTER the performance. The Beatles' 1965 concert at Shea Stadium is tremendous, but I've read that much of that was overdubbed after the concert.

SATCHMO

Some points to consider:

1. You can tell by the camera position, and the fact that it's not steady, that the video more than likely was not professionally done or commissioned by anyone legally associated with the band.

2. No aspect of the recording sounds like it's at the level of studio quality, which is not the same as saying that it's a terrible performance. I've seen C,S,N, (& Y) 3 times and each time their performance has been near perfect.

3. For a live recording to merit studio overdubs it usually has to be for the ultimate purpose of marketing the recording somewhere in the future. No one is going to say, "Hey remember that piece of video we shot a in New York just for ****s and giggles? Why don't we rent studio space time and overdub these tracks to make it sound better just because we have nothing better/more profitable to do." In order to justify the expense there has to be a plan in place for some sort of profitable distribution.

4. The Beatles 1965 concert at Shea Stadium was recorded in... wait for it... 1965. Live recording techniques were not quite as adept as they were when this video was shot (35 years after The Beatles concert). The point being in 1965 there was justification to rework a live recording in the studio and throw down some overdubs, because chances are some of the tracks weren't produced adequately enough. The most famous example of this was The [Charlie Parker] Quintet - Live at Massey Hall (1953), which is one of the most legendary jazz albums in history. Charles Mingus in post-production overdubbed all of his bass tracks for the entire live recording, because his original bass parts were nearly inaudible, as was often the case with upright bass during the early days of live recording. Had that recording been made today, or even 20 years ago, overdubbing the bass parts would have been completely unnecessary.

Freebase Dali

I'm not sure I understand. You're saying that you may believe it wasn't dubbed because you expected the lead guitar to not be so good?

Disregarding the very valid and relevant points Satchmo made above, I can tell you now that a lot of effort would have had to be made to make a dubbed in guitar part sound so cohesive and natural with the rest of the video. And considering that, like Satchmo said, the video doesn't show any evidence of being contracted or professional at all, it's not very likely that an amateur fan would go through such lengths to create a dub that sounds just as bad as the rest of the video.

Not to mention, you can't simply single out instruments and overdub them in a single recording. You can superimpose something on top of it, but you can't take the original instrument out of a single recording. If someone superimposed a new guitar recording over the old one, and at a volume that seemed natural with the rest of the instruments, you'd hear both versions simultaneously, and it would be ridiculously obvious where the parts differed. If you're going to dub over something, either the instrument you want to dub over needs to not be recorded, and dubbed over later, or you have to dub over the entire thing, meaning every instrument and element. Judging by the fact that the recording is clearly from a camera, you cannot achieve the first option. And I doubt anyone would go through the trouble of dubbing an entire performance of the same song by the same band just to superimpose the audio onto a bad recording to make the lead guitar sound better.

dreadnought

Thanks for the info, both of you. You've made me feel a lot better. I am from that era (born in 1953) and think that video is about the best I've ever seen (heard). Well, there are a few others that are about as good. I was just afraid someone had overdubbed guitar parts after the video was made, and that would have really taken something away from it. I feel quite confident now that it's genuine. Thanks again.