Her voice is more than back to where it used to be. She hits (and holds!) high notes live now that she never has before. And I don't know how anyone could listen to a song like "Weather Report" and say that even on STANDARD, she's not fully back... her voice was never that strong before, ever! They used to double and triple her voice on the albums and then run it through compressors and other things to make it sound strong, until it was almost unrecognizable.

I actually think she was pretty well back at Budokan, which is what she said at the time. She said shortly before Budokan, she suddenly got her voice back. And when I saw them there, I was actually surprised when I signed up here afterwards and read that she had had vocal problems - in fact I almost didn't believe it, because she sounded great. And you can hear that on the disc.

But now she's doing things that she never would have been able to do before. And her vibrato has really developed too, it makes me melt whenever she does her vibrato. It used to sound really uneven and shaky - listen to her trying to do vibrato in the chorus of "Shunkan Sentimental" and then compare that to the bridge (or any part) of "Awanai Tsumori no Genki de ne". It's no contest. She has a lot more control over her voice now. And she does that vibrato live; it's not some studio trick.

She's never been 100% perfect live; nobody is. Any perfect live recordings are auto-tuned; it's that simple. But she is as close to perfect live of anyone I've ever personally seen, and I've seen a lot of bands in my life.

"She's never been 100% perfect live; nobody is. "


Exactly.  I ran a studio for ten years and in that time and even though I worked with some people who could pitch with uncommon precision, not one vocalist ever got through a three and half minute song in one take without wanting to do an edit.  There has to be realistic expectations.


The truth is that Haruna is an awesome performer.


" ...and then run it through compressors..."


Compressors are the mainstay of the modern mixing process.  Every processed sound any of us ever hears in this day and age is compressed.   To use and old sound engineers adage which I'll drastically tone down for the benefit of forum social etiquette, you can't polish a pooh.  If Haruna didn't have a beautiful voice, there's nothing a studio engineer could do to pretend it was beautiful.  Polish a pooh and you get a shiny pooh.  Haruna's voice sounds beautiful because it is beautiful.

spacecadet wrote:Her voice is more than back to where it used to be. She hits (and holds!) high notes live now that she never has before. And I don't know how anyone could listen to a song like "Weather Report" and say that even on STANDARD, she's not fully back... her voice was never that strong before, ever! They used to double and triple her voice on the albums and then run it through compressors and other things to make it sound strong, until it was almost unrecognizable.

I actually think she was pretty well back at Budokan, which is what she said at the time. She said shortly before Budokan, she suddenly got her voice back. And when I saw them there, I was actually surprised when I signed up here afterwards and read that she had had vocal problems - in fact I almost didn't believe it, because she sounded great. And you can hear that on the disc.

But now she's doing things that she never would have been able to do before. And her vibrato has really developed too, it makes me melt whenever she does her vibrato. It used to sound really uneven and shaky - listen to her trying to do vibrato in the chorus of "Shunkan Sentimental" and then compare that to the bridge (or any part) of "Awanai Tsumori no Genki de ne". It's no contest. She has a lot more control over her voice now. And she does that vibrato live; it's not some studio trick.

She's never been 100% perfect live; nobody is. Any perfect live recordings are auto-tuned; it's that simple. But she is as close to perfect live of anyone I've ever personally seen, and I've seen a lot of bands in my life.

yes, i noticed it, that's why i said she is improving her skill, but her voice "range" is not coming back, which i meant is her deep voice as we used to hear in AITAI or Shining Sun even Cute as an easy examples.

don't get me wrong, i love her voice, in every album, every their song,
but u can hear her voice is start changing in Baby Action album, where her voice problem is start to occur.

i'm not complaining, just saying that she is having a bad time in a situation where she must overcome it by her self and she finally did it, i'm proud of her, happy for her.

just saying that her voice is slight different, 'coz some serious incident at the past time that we shouldn't regret. it happened. 
yet we can still see her perform again in a 100% Haruna with more improving singing skill now.

i hope this understandable, just my 2cents, as Haruna fan and SCANDAL fan, cheers

Hmm.

Her vocal range, if anything, has improved actually. She used to struggle quite a bit with some of their songs. Compare for instance, Aitai in their Temptation Box Zepp Tokyo show and Aitai at their Budokan show.

Or their Budokan version of Shunkan Sentimental (a song that she's always had some trouble with) and any previous performances before that.

The ultimate comparison, their First Live DVD and OJH. Night and day. (In many ways, not just vocals I might add.)

In my honest opinion, her voice quality now is *far, far* better than it was before the problems occurred.

I went to their Singapore show in Sep 2011 and that time she was still having problems and in at least one song (Shunkan Sentimental) she had to lipsync. There were other parts where she struggled with (for example the chorus of Kagerou, iirc) and you could hear it but at the time everyone was so happy that they were actually there and performing, no one cared

Then I went to their show in KL in Dec 2012. The difference was stark and obvious. Her singing is a bit different and, well, better. More power. And all of us could see how confident and comfartable she was singing. (And boy that show was LOUD)

Then this year with all the music festival shows and the release of Standard, she's gotten even stronger. Like Spacecadet mentions as well, I notice that she's gotten more control over her voice and has developed a certain "style" of singing with the way she vocalizes certain words and her more consistent vibrato which I'm really starting to like.

Haruna didn't just merely recover from 2011, she rebounded and got even better!

STANDARD is such an awesome album, and part of the reason for that is Haruna's singing.

EDIT: Something just came to mind, in KL, Harukaze. I nearly cried. Nearly

@macdyne73 you nearly cried during harukaze right?was it because of haru singing it with emotion?

i agree with spacecadet and macdyne73, haru's vocal is far much better than before. The way she's belting the high notes is smoother and her vibrato has really improved. Before i used to clinch my fist when she's about to sing those sky limit pieces, but now she's in full control of her voice and i'm really glad for the band.

drake79 wrote:
yes, i noticed it, that's why i said she is improving her skill, but her voice "range" is not coming back, which i meant is her deep voice as we used to hear in AITAI or Shining Sun even Cute as an easy examples.

I'm not sure if I could understand your opinion which I put in bold because having a deep voice has nothing to do with vocal range and I have to disagree about her range not coming back.

Scandal isn't famous for their vocal range so I can't really tell much about her real vocal range. Anyway, just to make things less abstract I did some comparison about Haruna's highest note before and after she had problems.

The highest note she was able to reach before she damaged her voice was a D#5 which could be found in an old song Midnight Television. If you compare that with now, her highest note has actually increased to an E5 in the song Brand New Wave. Even before STANDARD was released, she already sang the same note live when she performed Genkai Lovers with Terada Keiko and also at the opening of Girls Factory 2013 when she shouted YOYOGI!!!!

About her singing skill, as far as I can hear she has improved her breathing and diaphragmatic support but she still sounds throaty on higher notes in live performances which comes from her approach of directly "attacking" the note and as a result she gets kind of a choked tone. She's young so improvement is still possible.

I'm not sure if you could understand and agree but that's my opinion.

It's not always about who can hit the highest notes anyway.  That would probably go to Western opera singers and frankly to to an ear that isn't trained to listen to opera they sound like a ululating budgerigar.

I noticed that as well. It's like her voice is was deeper before, when I try to listen to their older songs. She's improving though! She sings better now is what I think. I'm no expert at this vocal things.. but I still love Haru no matter what happens. . I actually think her voice now sound awesome and it fit their new songs.

Yeah.... some of their live videos from 2011 like Girls Factory I can't watch because she doesn't look happy and her voice was so messed up. 

I was extremely relieved in 2012 that her voice was coming back~ She shouldn't put to much strain on her voice! :o Is she a smoker?

KAZUHIDE wrote:Yeah.... some of their live videos from 2011 like Girls Factory I can't watch because she doesn't look happy and her voice was so messed up. 

I was extremely relieved in 2012 that her voice was coming back~ She shouldn't put to much strain on her voice! :o Is she a smoker?

Yep I agree I never watch the 2011 summer videos @_@ 

Well none of us have seen her smoke before so we don't know. But constantly singing without rest is enough to cause damage anyway.

I highly doubt she smokes, or anyone in the band smokes, as they are strictly a non-smoking band, stated by Rina in one of her blog posts about Zippo.

I have personally known someone that lost her voice, but it wasn't because of smoking or drinking (though bad habits can really harm). Rather, it was because she always sings, and she may have overworked or strained her vocal chords. The same may have happened to Haru. Singers often experience this at least once in their careers. But I think SCANDAL and their staff have learned from this, so I doubt this will happen again.  .happy.

^^ Yep like Anchiel said, nope, none of the girls smoke. Rina once mentioned that all of them do not smoke and are not supportive of smoking even though they were endorsing their Zippo lighters.

Yes, in 2011, her voice hit rock bottom but I think something that always goes unsaid is that during SCANDAL BABY, during her solo part, she always tried to sing, no matter how screechy her voice was. No lipsyncing, just her voice, which I think shows a lot of courage.

EDIT: Skip to 3:50 to see what I mean. Note, she did this in practically every performance during that time... Awesome determination and bravery. 

I see... I'm so glad they don't smoke!~  .clap.

katheriine wrote:I noticed that as well. It's like her voice is was deeper before, when I try to listen to their older songs. She's improving though! She sings better now is what I think. I'm no expert at this vocal things.. but I still love Haru no matter what happens. . I actually think her voice now sound awesome and it fit their new songs.

Yeah, I've never actually checked, but her voice sounds like it's in the contralto / mezzo-soprano range.  She's not meant to have a high voice.

I agree her voice sounds awesome.  She also writes a lot of the lyrics and she plays the rhythm guitar very well.  She's also very beautiful and fits with the other members of the band.  The importance of having musicians that work well together cannot be underestimated.

If the management had tried to get rid of her, if I were the other three band members I would have went with her.  If the contracts work the same way the do here (Scotland), an international band like Scandal could fire their management and replace them.   I think this would be better since it would not be the same band without Haruna in it.

I noticed that Haru's voice sounds really different in BUDOKAN live, it's like recorded or something.. But in other lives her voice sounds stretched.. I hope everything is okay with Haru chan .shy.

^^In Budokan, her voice wasn't recorded and she didn't lipsync whatsoever, which is why fans were extremely proud and happy at that time. That period was when Haruna was still on the road to recovery and could nail notes and songs that were high, e.g Aitai.

Now, she doesn't have that same voice like others have said, but I think she actually has a better and wider range with better control. I'm not saying there's no room for more improvement, cause there definitely is. But she's still getting there and the previous improvement from 2011 is obvious. To sum it up, Haruna's perfectly fine now.

Her voice sounds great now.  I don't understand why people are being so hard on her.  Her voice is one of the main things that makes me want to listen to the band.  Her voice is beautiful.  If I could find someone like her to produce records for, I'd be driving a Ferrari at the moment.

What about Wonderful Tonight? Was it completely live or some parts of it were lip-synced? If yes, which parts?

LAKAME_MAN wrote:What about Wonderful Tonight? Was it completely live or some parts of it were lip-synced? If yes, which parts?

Only in Queens are trumps, i guess .hmmm.

Yep, Mitchan was right. But not the whole of Queens are Trumps. Only the autotune part.

But do also take note that many fans who have bought the officially released dvd aren't happy with it. Yes, the HD is awesome and there's those special closeup cameras, but there is extremely obvious autotune going on in some songs eg. Shoujo S. Tomomi sounds like a keyboard... If you watch the MON version which was broadcasted a few hours after the actual live, it's pretty much raw with not many things changed. They wouldn't have had the time anyway.

Lol I think I went slightly out of topic there, but since we were on the topic of Wonderful Tonight...

ichiruki! wrote:
But do also take note that many fans who have bought the officially released dvd aren't happy with it. Yes, the HD is awesome and there's those special closeup cameras, but there is extremely obvious autotune going on in some songs eg. Shoujo S. Tomomi sounds like a keyboard... 

Bear in mind I'm probably suffering from confirmation bias here given that I could probably watch a DVD of Haruna sitting drinking tea and be quite happy with it.

The way the Wonderful Tonight recording was edited and mixed is hardly the band's fault though.  That's down to the sound engineer who did the digital signal processing.  Going by the reaction of the crowd, they seem very happy with the performance of the band.

This is not aimed at you in particular ichiruki!, but there seems to be a serious lack of awareness on this thread just how difficult an undertaking it is to create vocal performances and to create the kinds of product that Scandal do.  It's very easy to sit in an armchair and snag someone else's work afterwards, but it's not so easy to create something similar.  If it was easy we'd all be doing it.  It takes a tremendous amount of work from everyone involved.

Incidentally, no one in the world can pitch to zero semitones.  It's impossible.  The allegedly injudicious use of auto-tune is a compromise.  Most recorded music is auto-tuned to some extent these days.

^^ Good points there and I respect your opinions Yes indeed it's not the band's fault. They don't do the sound engineering or mixing so they're not in charge. I'm sure all SCANDAL needed to do was give their consent. But then again, sir, I presume you would know a lot more than me because you're involved in the music industry.

Yeah, the crowd was insanely hyped up; it was after all their dream venue. They gave their heart and soul to that performance and I just can't believe they would simply let someone edit their vocals that much. SCANDAL do after all take pride in their live performances.

I don't have anything against autotune if it's used correctly either; I actually liked the autotune part of Queens are Trumps. It changed the pace of the song and the overall feel to it. But for Wonderful Tonight... yeah that's not the case. Budokan also had hints of autotune too actually, just not that obvious.

ichiruki! wrote:Yeah, the crowd was insanely hyped up; it was after all their dream venue. They gave their heart and soul to that performance and I just can't believe they would simply let someone edit their vocals that much. SCANDAL do after all take pride in their live performances.

I'm totally with you on this.  You can feel the pride in their work when you listen to them.

I actually agree with the points you made, but it's quite a hard thing as the band and even as the sound engineer, because if you don't do things in the industry standard way you're going out on a limb and risking your reputation, so sometimes you have to surrender a bit of control.

I've mixed a lot of tracks in a way I really don't like.  A lot of the time I think auto-tune can be more distracting than the pitching errors it corrects, because no one really expects a long live performance to have no mistakes in it.  If you go against the standards of the industry they can come down on you like a ton of bricks, so sometimes you just have to bite your tongue though, even though you can feel a little bit of your soul turning black.

I love Haruna's voice so much that when she sings I can feel the endorphins.  I love all the members.  I think Haruna is just awesome, her voice and her presence.  I've been playing the bass since before Tomomi was born and she is much more competent than I am, she gives virtuoso bass performances.  I love Rina's drumming, she plays fantastic busy drum lines and the timing is always rock solid.  I love Mami's guitaring, it's everything from hard rock to shoe gazing to shredding solos, she can do it all. 

Just absolutely brilliant rousing musicianship, beautiful, sexy, wild and yet very tight and professional performances, bravura stage presence and showmanship and I love the way they bring the audience participation in and make everyone feel part of it.  It's just too good.  Discovering this band in particular has made me feel alive and loving to get back behind the mixing desk again.  I had some SCANDAL CD's imported and I'm listening to them all the time in my car and banging my fists on the steering wheel while I drive.  Also loving watching them on youtube, truly amazing, just amazing...  
 
They've even taught me a few words of Japanese, looking at the Romaji translations on this site.

ichiruki! wrote:^^In Budokan, her voice wasn't recorded and she didn't lipsync whatsoever

Unfortunately, that is not true. It's true that she did not lipsync at all during the first half, but the latter half of Budokan was a bit riddled with her lipsynching/them playing her recorded vocals. She definitely lipsynched the choruses of "Aitai" and "Pride" (listen to the first 2 choruses & the last choruses; it's pretty obvious that those are what she lipsynched because they sound exactly like the album versions. Then, listen to the choruses right after the bridge/solos; those sound completely different because she actually did sing those live). Also, I'm pretty sure they played the recorded versions during the choruses of "BURN," "Hello!Hello!," and "TaiKimi," but those were less noticeable because all of the girls sing during those choruses and you can just barely single out HARU's vocals.

------------------------------------

And I gotta be honest: I'm not the biggest fan of HARU's voice now. Even though I love how she sounds when she sings at lower registers ("Weather report"), I don't like it when she sings at higher registers (the beginning of "Uchiagehanabi"). I just don't like how she sounds during those times.

I also don't like how she sings more quietly at lives now, like during Wonderful Tonight. It's probably to help her save her voice to prevent from what happened before from happening again, but I think it makes her sound weak. Even though I really enjoyed WT and I got to experience it in person, I don't particularly like watching the DVD because of how weak her voice sounds. I'm glad you can't tell in person, though; hah.

Well it's been a while since I've watched Budokan haha. Sorry for the mistake XD

@James. You're right about that too. SCANDAL have also said that they treat their team and management as friends in several interviews so teamwork is also a vital aspect in the music industry to be successful. Knowing people on a personal and friendly level could really get them somewhere later on in the future. No one is perfect too, and I guess that's why I was disappointed with the dvd. I get where they're coming from but no one's perfect, including them. There's no reason to even try to cover that up. That's just my opinion though. This is a good discussion haha.

@Jade. I've noticed that she does sing softer now and I'm sure we're not the only ones. The outdoor festivals didn't make her sound better either. There is such a huge volume gap between Haruna's and Tomomi's voices, e.g in Taiyou Scandalous. Personally, I love it when she sings at a higher pitch though (as long as it doesn't sound strained, that is) because she can make high notes still sound husky and low. It's a skill/habit of hers I guess.