Girls Planet 999 EP 1 Review Part 2

  • I don't quite remember how it was in SIXTEEN but so far most of singing there was fully live which kind of makes them look worse sometimes when compared to e.g. PD48 where all their performances (at least 1st stage (post-auditions)) were heavily autotuned. However, I think some of the contestants there actually sound better than autotuned PD48 trainees, so... the level is higher imo.

  • I don't quite remember how it was in SIXTEEN but so far most of singing there was fully live which kind of makes them look worse sometimes when compared to e.g. PD48 where all their performances (at least 1st stage (post-auditions)) were heavily autotuned. However, I think some of the contestants there actually sound better than autotuned PD48 trainees, so... the level is higher imo.

    Oh interesting, I've always wondered if Mnet does selective auto-tuning. Which PD48 performances do you think were heavily autotuned?


    That said, nothing compares to YWY2 autotune.

  • Oh interesting, I've always wondered if Mnet does selective auto-tuning. Which PD48 performances do you think were heavily autotuned?


    That said, nothing compares to YWY2 autotune.

    Not really selective autotuning, I was not talking about that, although I have some suspicions regarding some contestant performances in GP999 but would rather keep silent on that for now since I am not sure.


    Regarding the PD48 - the most glaring examples would be the first performance stages, all of them. People from the live audience said that almost all contestants sounded horribly live and the aired versions are heavily edited. That also explains why e.g. Nako got such amount of votes - because she actually sang more or less OK and was better than others, but this was not as obvious in the aired version and I remember wondering why she got so many votes.


    Regarding the YWY2 - I heard some of the cloud assessment versions (unedited performances which were streamed to mentors and "live" audience) and I wouldn't say that majority sounded bad, although some of the contestants were indeed heavily autotuned in the show version (Joey Chua is the most obvious example, she was constantly off-tune in the live version). One team even got evil edited - for some reason iQiyi aired the practice version where one contestant had voice crack (I think it was NaHo), while the cloud version did not have it, lmao.


    I actually have zero problems with autotuning the performances to get better sound, but it has to be applied equally.


  • Oh interesting. I remember seeing the first live performance of the YWY2 group and it was...really bad. I'd be interested in hearing those cloud assessment versions though. I was mildly annoyed when people were talking up the YWY2 performances when it was very clear (to me, at least) that they were autotuned or studio versions. That said, they're not really moving around as much as Produce 48 either. Limbs yes, bodies no.


    Any idea how the groups chose their songs? Some of the groups chose...poorly. The Izone performance group was hitting everything a little too hard. I can still hear Lay yelling "Balance!" lol.

  • Oh interesting. I remember seeing the first live performance of the YWY2 group and it was...really bad. I'd be interested in hearing those cloud assessment versions though. I was mildly annoyed when people were talking up the YWY2 performances when it was very clear (to me, at least) that they were autotuned or studio versions. That said, they're not really moving around as much as Produce 48 either. Limbs yes, bodies no.


    Any idea how the groups chose their songs? Some of the groups chose...poorly. The Izone performance group was hitting everything a little too hard. I can still hear Lay yelling "Balance!" lol.

    I am not sure if I will be able to dig out every performance, because all of them were on Weibo and they were getting strikes after a few days, so I am not sure whether every single of them even survived or not. However, there are some uploaded on YT - e.g. Ambush on All Sides 2 Team B (

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    ). I now re-listened to this one - the Joey Chua one is the most obvious one, she was heavily autotuned in the aired version; Yu Yan's editing is weird: they removed the small voice crack, but for some reason 'flattened' half of her verses - she was half-rapping and half-singing in the live version, but iQiyi edited in a way that she is essentially only rapping (I prefer the live version actually, because half-rapping and half-singing sounds better for me); Xu ZIyin stumbled on the first high note, but other than that she sounds close to the aired version; Song Zhaoyi & Zeng Keni sound almost exactly the same as in the aired version, but their parts weren't vocally intensive. Sound quality is shit there since it was probably re-recorded (during the live sessions), rather than directly obtained from iQiyi.


    I am not sure what do you mean by "Limbs yes, bodies no" - it depends on the performance and the song, lol. They are clearly moving their bodies in EXO's Eve & Mama, A Little Sweet, Ambush on All Sides 2 (there is one dance break where mostly hands are involved, but overall there are many rotations and body movements in the performance), Non-Daily Revelry, etc. I think you are remembering some of the more vocally-focused performances - Flammable & Explosive, Orange Island, etc. where indeed there weren't many dance moves.


    I think that Mnet chose the songs for them. I think that way because Yaning-Yujin drama is clearly scripted and giving them Helicopter seems like a part of the scenario. Similarly, I am not sure about these performance groupings being natural either - XIaoting was in a group with clearly weaker contestants and got to shine in comparison to them, so I think that Mnet intentionally placed her there.


    That being said, I think we are going a bit off-topic there and I am not very familiar with the rules there, so I don't want to get banned for that, lol.

  • This is interesting. I only hear Roada singing...the parts listed as Joey singing sound like Roada. Everyone else is rapping. It's not a good song to judge intonation on when 4/5 of them are rapping mostly.


    I haven't looked at all the choreos you listed but it's pretty clear that the Ambush choreo doesn't have the singer moving too much when they are singing. Rapping is a different story here...not that rapping doesn't have pitch but you don't need to be quite as precise.


    Hard to say about contestant grouping. Other "top" contestants were placed with lower ranked girls too...and this is only according to the theme song ranking. It comes off worse in the C-group if the low end is lower than for the other groups. It's too bad they couldn't get better talent from China but maybe we'll be surprised.

  • This is interesting. I only hear Roada singing...the parts listed as Joey singing sound like Roada. Everyone else is rapping. It's not a good song to judge intonation on when 4/5 of them are rapping mostly.


    I haven't looked at all the choreos you listed but it's pretty clear that the Ambush choreo doesn't have the singer moving too much when they are singing. Rapping is a different story here...not that rapping doesn't have pitch but you don't need to be quite as precise.


    Hard to say about contestant grouping. Other "top" contestants were placed with lower ranked girls too...and this is only according to the theme song ranking. It comes off worse in the C-group if the low end is lower than for the other groups. It's too bad they couldn't get better talent from China but maybe we'll be surprised.

    Joey parts are her singing, Ziyin has a different tone. Yu Yan is singing half of her verses. I found some other performances:

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    These are mostly the weaker trainees, the aired version is actually worse for some contestants, lol, evil editing in action;

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    The same song, but another team, the aired version has voice cracks that aren't present in this version, there was a huge fuss on Weibo about that as it turned out that iQiyi showed the practice version where NaHo's voice indeed cracked - evil editing again.


    Ah, you meant that - yes, the singer in Ambush does not move much when singing. However, it is the same in most of the PD48 performances, no? Nako's high note was when she was standing still; same with practically every other vocal-heavy part.


    The majority of the Chinese contestants there are either lower-ranked trainees from YWY2/Chuang, the less popular SNH48 trainees (filming coincided with their elections), or mostly newbies. The strongest YueHua trainees, for example, were filming another show at that moment, so again the weaker group went there. The only exceptions are Ruiqi & Ziyin who had decent rankings (#11 and #18 respectively) and some trainees clearly improved from the previous shows (Yaning). I guess the ability of Mnet to attract better talent will depend on the outcome of this show. That being said, the Liao sisters were clearly underselling themselves for the first performance (there was a topic about that, they are better dancers than they showed in the audition) - it seems like they are aiming for the "rookie improved quickly" trope here.

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