A: We love the virtual choir videos, too! Super inspiring! And there’s a pretty straightforward method to their madness.
Here’s how it works:
Once the song has been selected for the virtual choir performance, someone makes a “reference track”. This is an audio recording with instrumental or vocal tracks for all the voice parts. It helps if there is a count off at the beginning: “1..2..3..4…”
The reference track is sent around via email to all the singers, who listen to the track through headphones or earbuds while they record their own vocal track. That’s why most virtual choristers you see on the videos are wearing headphones or earbuds. They are singing along to the reference track, even though you can’t hear it!
The reference track ensures that everyone’s part is aligned in time. And it’s why your attempts at real-time Zoom singing don’t work. The slight delay in everyone’s feed means you can’t really stay together. Argh! So annoying.
In addition to recording the audio tracks, singers also record a video track, either on the same recording as the audio, or on a separate video track. (It helps to have a buddy here!)
Those separate recordings are then sent to the brilliant sound and video editors, who string together all the audio and video tracks into the polished performances you see on YouTube. The engineers can tweak the different audio tracks, sweeten the flat notes, drop any goofs or screeches out of the mix, and align and edit the video tracks so that it looks like most people are singing along in real time, or travel around the globe from part to part.
While these performances definitely existed pre-pandemic, there’s been quite the outbreak (yes, pun intended) of virtual choir videos since lockdown started. We’ve linked to some of our favorites.
We hope all of you are finding new ways to connect, to create, to comfort, and to carry on.
