I watch the digest, and my eyebrows keep shooting up.
And there's a lot going on in the stage, I can't focusing on Ayu while all the dancer jumping around.

That pink outfit reminds me of her dancers outfit during ladies night in AT06

^ That arena always seemed to me more countdown-ish rather than tour ;p

Did you watch unedited version? She sounded awful.

She re-uses the boots from her ensemble during the cutesy AT06 segment. :yes

In three months will be the 17th anniversary, so a new album or special releases are coming soon? I hope so.

17th anniversary is not really anything special...Goin by that logic she would celebrate every year with a special release.

Listen to first minute of How beautiful you are from AT12 and then from CDL14-15 and you'll know what I hate about her vocals and unfortunately Ayu does it in almost each song nowadays. What's worse, it's not in live shows anymore, she slowly uses it in album recordings as well.

AT 12

CDL 14-15

Isn't it the 18th anniversary?

^ It should be, she consistently cites April 8th 1998 as her debut, as opposed to January 1st 1999 (which would be the only other logical date with the release of her first album imo).

I went to the show on the 29th and 31st. I have to say that on the 29th she didn't sound bad at all. She didn't had real problems with her voice but when I went on the 31st I was kind of shocked lol...
I really think she should not do so many lives and/or use more lipsynch like other artists to rest her throat.

I believe her condition is not fit yet...

She sounds good on TA tour, because the venue is smaller and she didn't need to do many things on stage...so she can focusing all of her stamina to her vocal..

but when she did another big stage production concert again...she did well on the first day but on the third day...her vocal really strained...so painful to watch...I hope she really take a good rest right now..she deserve it..

She didn't sound bad on 30th either.
But I don't think that hoarse voice is shocking, it would be shocking if she was singing totally off key which wasn't the case. Singing for couple of hours isn't long at all. Especially when you have interlude breaks and drink water between songs. What kills her voice is her technique.
It's such a popular stereotype that she sings too much while she just shouts too much and damages her voice. Honestly I felt like she forgot what she learned from her vocal coaches.

I was there on the 31st live. I think she sounded much better live than the tv recording.

she won't make a "special release" but i believe that we get maybe the dvd on that day with the hint on the side. to add information ..

For someone to last this long is kinda special but yeah it's no 20th or 25th anniversary or anything like that

There's no point releasing on April 8th this year, it's a Friday (releases are usually on Wednesdays because of Oricon's week). imo A ONE only came out on her anniversary because it happened to be on a Wednesday and she took the opportunity...

It is.

oh ok, i haven't thought about that:D

I was on the 30th show too and I'd say that her voice on most of the performances that night are good if not, were't really bad. I am surprized now that I watched the digest. o.O Ayu is shouting most of the time on the 31st show. I hope she gets enough rest before this year's activities.

Her voice is just strained, you guys need to calm down it's not the end of the world lol. She needs a well deserved rest.

Honestly tho, I loved this year's CDL. She slayed.

GREEN and born to be performances will be uploaded to Ayu's official channel in 20 min. Edited I'm sure.

lol, "forgiveness" from PoM DVD sound awful as well. PoM sound better because all the music are soften and slowed down, she doesn't have to scream/yell over loud music.

Welcome back, robotic-sounding Ayu...

Ahaha they used the first version of the logo in the beginning of the video. COWNTDOWN.

But omg, the autotune on this is worse than the 2013 and 2014 DVDs.

She sounds like a Vocaloid during Born to be..., wth.

Maybe it's not too late if we complain about such editing through TeamAyu message form.
Can't help being disappointed. First Ayu keeps shouting all 3 dates as if her vocal improvement never happened, then AVEX switches back to 2013-2014 autotuning.
What the heck...

I'd rather listen to over-edited vocals than horrible vocals

*thumb up* Very good eyes, I didn't notice that until you pointed it out.

This live was weird in terms of sound. As i said in another post her live tv broadcasts have problem with instruments adjusting etc. Also as somebody noticed warning probably had pre-recorded vocals as in the 2nd verse Ayu started moving lips too early and sorry....if warning has pre-recorder vocals (aside from lalalai) and they really don't go that great with music background....something really is wrong. Also we have comments that tv-version sounded different compared to being there in arena. I hope that for dvd/br we will get better edited version (and let's face it - it's impossible to avoid here). I want to properly hear new/improved arrangements of songs. Will live with digitalised Ayu considering she was obviously tired after year of hard work.

She should take a rest for a half year and come back with a New single!

Love the new GREEN edit, sounds almost like a studio version.And the arrangement can be heard so clearly. As for Born to be, I have to agree, she does sound robotic.

oooops :laugh It's not just in the beginning, it's the wrong logo there in the corner the whole video haha

I'm not too worried about the vocals for Born To Be... on this digest, it's probably just some quick "fix" they did for this video, not necessarily how she's going to sound on the DVD...

They still keep that logo :roflmao

don't really understand how avex can still use the wrong logo which was fixed already!!

you can hear her voice being almost gone when she counts and screams HAPPY NEW YEAR so i'm not that worry about horrible vocals in tv version really :yes i was ready for her bad vocals again but this saves the situation pretty well for me

maybe good edition take too much time and that's why they did it in most simple way

Movin' on without you（ayumi hamasaki COUNTDOWN LIVE 2014-2015 A Cirque de Minuit）was uploaded less than 2 days after the show and was edited nicely, so I doubt it takes much time to edit.
It's not only Born to be, GREEN suffers from the same problem. I personally sure that's the way DVD will sound like if AVEX doesn't receive negative feedback from fans.
By the way videos from TA tour that are in the intro video are heavily autotuned too, so I guess that was a first indication of this editing change.
Next they will ruin TA limited tour and A-nation 2016.

lol at they using the wrong logo, messvex trax

Also, I know the voice is edited, but I don't hear how "robotic" it sounds :no at least on GREEN, didn't bother watching BTB...

hmmmm i think the adjustment is alright. I didnt watch the original BTB video so im not sure. but the BORN sounds emotionless thats for sure lol.

I did notice they edited GREEN as well, but imo it's not that bad and actually sounds better than the TV version (I really didn't like how forced her vocals sounded on that song on the TV version). Born To Be...'s editing, on the other hand, sounded a bit exaggerated to me.

But her vocals on that performance were already nice to begin with.

Whoever her team is or Avex...just embarrassing. Avex are so lucky they have EXILE because they've driven all their acts into the ground and haven't launched a successful new act/group in years.

Auto tune is bad. Can't feel Ayu's emotion when they cap it with that awful correction software.

Also, I really dislike GREEN's arrangement - I keep thinking RED LINE is coming in every time the instruments start up.

EXILE and their related groups are not Avex's, their company is LDH (whose president is EXILE's leader Hiro), they only release through Rhythm Zone, but their management don't have anything to do with Avex at all... which explains why their groups have a much better management.

Ayu, go to Dimension Point with the other queen !

ikr get out of avex ayu lol But I guess she can't since the only reason her career is a thing is mr. max matsuura being a pain in her ass when she was a teen *sigh* really wish she would avex effs everything up

It's time for her to take a hiatus or she simply just can't sing properly anymore...

She can, the FNS SEASONS TV performance was almost flawless.
I think she really needs a good rest.
The AT2015 was also great and not autotuned fixed and that was almost 4 hours.
In the CDL it's just very clear her vocal chords are really strained and she could do nothing with it. Now at least she has no show in the horizon at least until April so she has 4 months of rest to rest her voice which is a lot of time.

She didn't rest for a long time properly since the beginning of AT15.

I just can't with you guys blaming Avex for any bad decision. We're talking about Ayumi Hamasaki, not a brand new artist who has no voice inside the company. She is the executive producer of pretty much everything that she releases. This is not just about a bad company, or bad management, Ayu probably don't care if her voice has to be edited the hell out on the DVD.

I agree with you, but I wouldn't go that far (to that bold sentence), she just really couldn't do anything with it. She needs rest obviously and she didn't want to cancel the yearly CDL. She tried to do her best, that one can see.

I'm not saying that she's lazy or anything, knowing she could have a voice coach just for a show or whatever, I'm talking specifically about the DVD footage.
She knew how her voice was going to sound and did her best. The fact that they are going to edit her voice for a video release is not a new thing, and it's done as poorly as it was done before, and as I said, she probably don't care about it.

i don't know if ayu is really "the head" behind her decisions. Since she isn't an icon anymore and setting new trends, i don't think she can publish what she wants this is what i think ..

I just hope that THAT edited version doesn't end up in the DVD. Probably they just needed to make a quick edition for the sake of an early youtube preview. No matter how much I adored this CDL, last year's was better imo.

She just DID hire a voice coach around the time of Colours, didn't she? It's simply overuse. She knows how to use her voice, and we know that she sounds great when she is rested and prepared. It has been a year FULL of performing, and I'm sure it is exhausting. Cut her a bit of slack.

^ I agree, specially considering she had pneumonia a few weeks ago that I'm still not convinced she made a full recovery before going back to performing (after all it's pneumonia, not a simple cold)... She needs some nice rest.

I think it's the opposite. When she was the top selling artist Avex had her on a leash the whole time, making sure she was still popular and that people knew her every move. It was when she took control of her career and started doing things her way that her popularity started to decline... and she seems much happier about it now than back then when Avex was controlling everything she did.
People blame Avex for things they don't like because it's easier than blaming Ayu, but imo most decisions about her career now a days are her own, not Avex's, or at least she's the one who approves what's shown to her.
That's not to say that eventually Avex might press her with something, a well known example being the a-nation '11...

I know I sound like a broken record, so I'll repeat for the last time.
She shouted all 3 dates instead of singing, but on 29th and 30th her voice wasn't hoarse yet. She sounded exactly like in 2011-2014 with all that shouting, very different from more calm vocals from CDL 2014-2015 and arena tour 2015.
So I'm not sure she knows how to use her voice properly. Maybe it's her deafness that makes her shout that hard, but this CDL vocals were a big step back.

what happened then?

^ wasn't that the Naoya episode?

She wanted to perform with Naoya and JUNO. JUNO, of course, is the twin brother of JYJ's Junsu, who would not be performing at a-nation that year (because TVXQ was going to, and it was in the middle of the whole lawsuit problem between them, so if one was performing, the other couldn't), so Avex pretty much told Ayu JUNO couldn't perform and that she was going to perform the song with someone else instead. Ayu being who she is obviously got mad at the treatment they were giving JUNO and herself. She went against Avex's decision, decided to not perform the song at all since JUNO couldn't perform (instead of performing with someone else, I assume it was Naoya, but I don't think it was ever revealed who Avex told her to perform with, she just said they told her to perform with someone else) and completely refused to be the last performer and end the concert like she always did. That got Avex's staff complaining she was being childish, making they have to adjust the lineup in a rush because she refused to follow what was already planned (though they were forcing her to change her setlist out of the blue right before that, so I find it hypocrisy on their part to complain about her doing to same)... I'm honestly proud of her for defending JUNO at that time, what Avex did to him for something he had no relation to (it was his brother issue, not his) was absurd.

Wow, thanks for the info. I didn't know this whole story as I wasn't a fan in 2011. This proves once again that ayu is a great person!

@pimenta At the same time I don't think they were trying to make her change the setlist, since her song with JUNO as also recorded with Naoya, and what she did was pretty much how she acted during 2000s when she was really against a lot of things that Avex was making her do.
I understand the problem with JUNO probably was bigger than Avex could handle in such a short time (he performing at the same stage than his brother on the same day), so Avex isn't that one to blame, more like the internal problem with TVXQ lawsuit, but I totally think Ayu did the right thing at that time, keeping everything how she wanted and showing who was in charge.

I agree! I may be biased because I do like Avex, but I also think Ayu loves her job and really wanted to do the Team Ayu Tour even if it would screw with her voice for the remainder of the year. Also, although we would understand, I guess she couldn't cancel CDL, plus it is only 3 days as opposed to a whole tour.

I'm sure she will take better care of her voice during her break and maybe even take up some better singing techniques? I don't know much about singing so I can't comment on how much of the CDL performance was down to her schedule this year and her technique.

Omg the autotune on Born to be... is really terrible lol. I don't think that GREEN's autotune is bad though.

I still think that her vocals were quite alright considering the amount of singing in 2015. I hope she will rest her voice a little and comes back with better vocals. I don't think that she needs to retire or whatever, at most she needs a break, a longer one for all I care and that's all.

Ah, yes you're right! I was wondering the whole time of which song the new arrangement reminds me! yes, RED LINE indeed :P

OMG... Lol at least the auto-tune isn't as bad as A BEST LIVE tho but just imagine the auto-tune for Many Classic Moments rofl.

And what is up with all these Avex blaming? God this isn't 2002 anymore ya'll have to retire that excuse. She is the one who decides for her career nowadays...

Is it something wrong with my hearing? Compared to tv version born to be sounds quite similar...for me Green is much much much more electronicified

Why would anyone think Ayu is calling all the shots in a declining music industry where the bottom line is more important than ever? She works for a corporation.

THIS. No corporation would ever give up control of a cash cow like Ayu, no matter how unsuccessful she may seem to be. I'm pretty sure Ayu's been singing about still being very much under Avex's control years past A BEST and until now. alterna, Pride, until that Day..., Secret, Don't Look Back, I could go on. She even recently said that she can still relate to Secret. So, I don't understand why people think she's the master of her own destiny at this point. That's not to say that she doesn't make any of her own decisions when it comes to her career, but it's likely that avex still has the final say.

too many dancers on the stage...can't really focus on Ayu...I don't really like this CDL :(

photos from barks

http://i.imgur.com/UfwNQVa.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vbr9is7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/t4fIC8R.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4PJkNAQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kdWdRup.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tqoto1n.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Ce3gwTj.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/KQOFehF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PmUadKX.jpg

I really don't mind the dancers. My attention doesn't sway from ayu much anyway. I have zero complaints about CDM, except for certain parts of the set list.

Well..I believe everyone here that have been watching the show live..the dancers or the performers really not distracting at all....we still can very much focus on Ayu...

but yes, maybe on the DVD it's a little bit distracting...but I'm used to it and won't complain about it anymore..

Avex blocked Step You video in Japan, and now, they no longer block it :D
I realize that they do not block her latest albums too, it's so weird :eyebrow

I have a love-hate sentiment toward this mechanical edit. Essentially I prefer edited vocals to poor performances, but I also couldn't help noticing when the edit is too much that she sounds robotic. That said, I like the GREEN edit because she sounded too strained/tired/off-pitch in the original performance (and just generally the whole show); however, it's kind of overused in Born To Be...

photos from http://109news.jp/event/20160112/49234/?detail

http://i.imgur.com/sTcoE4r.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/zjhlyFF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ziRg951.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/2OFdARn.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/qKqHfRm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/lIiBUJT.jpg

Bottom left male dancer, is he new? Kinda hot lol
http://s11.postimg.org/vm829zlur/Ce3gw_Tj.jpg

it's so weird but being at her lives....it's so hard for me to hear the vocal issues. but then i see these tv versions and it sounds like a completely different live.

she really didn't sound that bad...but then i guess she really did? haha it's weird



in terms of editing, as long as they keep the audience's reactions and such i don't mind it too much. but when they bring down their volume too much it just doesn't work for me. since it's a concert and all i want that atmosphere.

more than vocal editing i can't stand when the dvd edits switch camera angles too much. i generally don't care what each dancer is doing. like at all lol. show them in the broad views and here amd there, but constantly changing views bothers me. now that her troupe is so big it just seems to happen more haha.

I agree, if they lower/remove the audience reactions too much the concert feels unexciting...
I'm honestly hoping they make WARNING look better on the DVD with better camera angle choices, because it's annoying how you can barely see Ayu behind the dancers on the TV version.

All those beautiful picture ♥ I would be so glad if Ayu released a new photobook.

Agreed. I think they did a really good job editing her vocals this time. Miracle workers lol.

Someone uploaded the full concert to YouTube, and I watched it... Hmmmmm she definitely need to rest :no

He has it in better quality. Hope he can share the raw file :dead2 I don't like this show but I want the intro :D

I like the intro, I think they show some of the TA tour.

I'm watching the tv version of this concert on TV. ayu voice sounds much better in TV speaker. Her voice sounds bad in iPad.

This concert is excellent! Many classics songs have new arrangement. They are sounded fresh to me.

I love the part " Summer dairy" the most. It is so touching at the moment ayu met shuya. They are perfect match. It would be amazing if they were couple. I truly want it was true!!!

She's happily married to someone that's not Shuya, in case you forgot. Can we not start shipping Ayu with her dancers? You'd think we'd know better after it backfired on us the first time.

AMEN, SISTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grass.

hahahaha, yeah- when im thinking of maro the performance of appears on hotel love songs always appear in my mind

Ugh, I felt like Maro left a permanent taint on all the music videos and performances he touched. So while I'm happy to see Shuya, I'm glad that they're not an actual thing.

WARNING performance on Ayu's official channel:



It's the same camera angles as the TV version though :(

her team being lazy af, and didnt even change the misspelled logo

Auto tuned, over processed, whatever, her vocals are at least bearable to listen to in this version. In my opinion, I feel like this was one of the songs she really struggled with.

Lazy lazy lazy -_- In my opinion (and not only mine) vocals for warning were pre-recorded just the sound team screwed up so even then it sounded not that great. Sound here is fine, just weird echo added to her. What i totally hate is same angles and messed logo. I am glad that they post those promo videos though.
Edit:
And for god's sake her twitter account background....

They can't make the DVD in 14 days... She is only making a little promo for people who couldn't see the concert (or international fans). She doesn't have to assume that we have downloaded it.
If they don't change anything for the DVD then I can understand that they are being lazy. But now it no seems to me.
If they don't upload the videos, they are being lazy.
If they upload the videos, they are being lazy.
People always complaining.

IIRC, the clips they uploaded on Youtube last year for CDL 14-15 were different from the DVD version, and they actually uploaded new clips on Youtube with a different sound as well. So we might still get a different editing on the DVD.

Complaining for the purpose of complaining is wrong but this here is constructive one. As i said i'm glad that they upload this promo videos but logo? Or the moment when she is moving lips in wrong moment not being changed? Not a great promo.

The misspelled logo is bullshit. They easily could have changed that. So stupid.

Yes, I'm with you about the logo. I suppose they have all the videos done or maybe they didn't realize about the mistake, it can be a possibilitie. My opinion was more about the angles or voice editing.

Maybe when she move the lips the mic was off and she/avex didn't see any problem on it. They tend to turn off the mic to avoid sounds during choreography. Normally it has a feature that makes it turn off automatically when she isn't singing so we can't hear the breathing.

We can think she is lipsync but maybe she isn't doing it and they don't see anything wrong...

For the previous year, they also used the TV footage for the first set of videos that they uploaded on YouTube. When it's closer to the release date, they uploaded the cuts from the DVD. That said, the pitch correction wasn't that sloppily done. HOWEVER, the edit on the vocals on WARNING wasn't as bad as GREEN and Born To Be...

*contributes to slew of complaints*

Anyway, ugh. KO-YA is hot.

I wouldn't say it's lazy to use the same footage, because, as said before, they don't have to assume fans have downloaded the TV version and can re-watch it whenever they want to compare... But their lack of attention to their own edition is a problem, like using the wrong logo. Why did they even keep the wrong one? Is the same person that is editing those videos the one that made the logo and thinks the spelling is "cowntdown"? Because if the only editing they're doing to an already existing footage (besides the audio) is adding the logo, the least they could do is check if it's the right one...

Avex please, is not COWNTDOWN >_<

I don't care that they use the same camera angles, but why they keep fail moment before second verse? They don't care to show it, or didn't notice like logo?