I had the opportunity to record an interview with Lea Salonga recently for an upcoming Philmusic Podcast (we bumped into her, asked her, she consented, simple as that). It was interesting on many levels, including a technical one - I managed to see firsthand what a lot recording engineers mentioned about Lea's masterful vocal control.
As we setup for the interview (I use a portable recording setup involving a laptop, a couple of Samson USB condenser mics, and Adobe Audition). When we were getting levels - she took one look at the waveforms on her track on the laptop - made a note to herself about her volume, and adjusted her levels by adjusting the volume of her speaking voice accordingly. I didn't have to do anything after that, and for the most part she stayed on those levels (well except for the occasional bursts of laughter). Her vocal track sounded great on playback - mine (as the interviewer) sounded crappy as always, requiring a lot of post-prod intervention.
I told her about the story that a friend of mine, Dennis Mabanta, once told me when he used to record her at the late Audio Captain Studios. He used to say that Lea has "natural compression", very good control of her levels. She responded with "yeah, I think I have a built in mic pre-amp".
I guess it's a combination of skill, experience, and inborn talent - and professionalism, she doesn't want to waste your time. It's great to find a vocalist who really understands her instrument, both in a natural and technical sense.
About the interview itself, that was interesting too. Lea turns out to be a fan of the OPM band scene, so we talked about Imago (she has nothing but praises for Aia de Leon), The Dawn, Sandwich, Cambio, Bamboo, Paramita... not what you'd expect from this "Broadway star."
Update: And she also talked about some PhilMusic forum netizens like her bro Gerard and Marvin Querido