Re: Prince - Halftime Show
I don't disagree with Keith Richards' point but I disagree with your point. We're talking about two different things. The sound you hear on TV has very, very little to do with the sound in the arena. It's not like the TV crew sticks up a couple of mics to pick up the room (or stadium sound in this case) and just broadcasts that. It's all a very high level production and amazing what is accomplished on events of this scale in the small time they have.
Every instrument is mic'ed (or DI'ed) as well as vocals and then the mic lines are split. You will at least have 3 splits (or you can think of them as feeds):
Broadcast audio console
House audio console
Monitor (stage) audio console
Each of those positions will be manned by at least one engineer. Each engineer will be responsible for entirely different mixes. Performers on stage won't be hearing what the house hears or the tv for that matter. In these days of IEMS (in ear monitoring) the performer doesn't even have much concern with the bleed of the house sound reaching his/her ears.
By the same token the FOH (front of house) engineer will be soley responsible for what the stadium is hearing thru the house speakers. Typically for an event such as the Super Bowl the inhouse sound system/public address system is augmented greatly. I didn't notice what they did this year but in year's past they've utilized line array (speaker) technology on large carts or trailers to better cover the stadium for the halftime show.
Lastly, most likely in a truck altho it can be a specialized room, will be the engineer that controls the mix for the television broadcast. Again, every instrument, track, vocal all feed here (to this console) directly, and separately, from the stage. There is total control here. There are also some ambient mics fed here in order to feed some of the crowd noise into the television mix to give it a 'live' feel. You'd be surprised at how little crowd noise you'd hear if it wasn't for these ambient mics.
If you took a handycam into the stadium and recorded the concert then you would be hearing the acousitics of the venue and of course the crowd. But the mics on stage are usually uni-directional, super cardioid, or hyper cardiod type mics. Which means they cancel ambient sound to varying degrees and only (more or less) pick up what is directly at the head of the mic. Not much crowd noise (leakage) is going to get into a mic 1" off the grill of a guitar amp at arena stage levels. By the same token, a vocal mic also won't be picking up much else except the singer that is singing into it. Especially rock and pop music styles where the singers stay very close, if not touching the mic with their lips.
The S/N ratio of these close mic'ed instruments/vox comes into play.
Things like keyboards and bass guitars are typically DI'ed (which mean they connect directly -Direct Injection) to the sound system (and technically on most larger production the bass guitar amp will also be mic'ed altho that is optional). A DI'ed instrument won't really be subjected to any ambient noise in its channel on the mixing consoles.
Drums, with all their open mics, would seem a source for picking up ambient sounds but that is where 'noise gates' come into play. Those open mics won't really be 'open'... they'll be 'gated' and will only 'open' when a sound of a certain threshold (and for pro equip also a frequency range can be selected) is reached. IOW- the TING of a cymbal probably won't even open the mic, but a solid THUD of a drum will open its mic. But the drum won't be loud enough to cause the threshold to be reached on an adjacent drum and mic. So, except when those drums (individually) are being hit, those mics are 'off'.
And once again, this can and will be all set differently for the house, stage, and broadcast mixes.
As you can imagine, a mass of cabling is necessary for a production of this size.... The logistics have to be a nightmare.
---
So it is a misconception to think the people in the stadium are hearing what we hear at home. They are completely different mixes, mixed by completely different people.
---
Now on the smallest of small scale local TV work things can be done differently. Altho the same basic principles still do apply. I have done some work where the basic house feed was made available to several different broadcasters covering an event. This is typical for a news conference type event. Some people will take just the natural sound while others will take the provided feed.... or they can utilize both and pick and choose in editing (or even live on the fly).
And I've also done it where I've mixed house audio with a split going to the television truck and tv did their own mixing. (And in wearing two hats I've setup a matrix mix of the house band and fed that to the broadcast truck. This mix had absolutely no similarity to the mix fed to the house... I was simply doing what would normally be done by someone else).
But we're talking SMALL scale stuff there.... but the idea is the same at every level (at least once you start utlizing splits).
-Bball
Originally posted by brichard
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Every instrument is mic'ed (or DI'ed) as well as vocals and then the mic lines are split. You will at least have 3 splits (or you can think of them as feeds):
Broadcast audio console
House audio console
Monitor (stage) audio console
Each of those positions will be manned by at least one engineer. Each engineer will be responsible for entirely different mixes. Performers on stage won't be hearing what the house hears or the tv for that matter. In these days of IEMS (in ear monitoring) the performer doesn't even have much concern with the bleed of the house sound reaching his/her ears.
By the same token the FOH (front of house) engineer will be soley responsible for what the stadium is hearing thru the house speakers. Typically for an event such as the Super Bowl the inhouse sound system/public address system is augmented greatly. I didn't notice what they did this year but in year's past they've utilized line array (speaker) technology on large carts or trailers to better cover the stadium for the halftime show.
Lastly, most likely in a truck altho it can be a specialized room, will be the engineer that controls the mix for the television broadcast. Again, every instrument, track, vocal all feed here (to this console) directly, and separately, from the stage. There is total control here. There are also some ambient mics fed here in order to feed some of the crowd noise into the television mix to give it a 'live' feel. You'd be surprised at how little crowd noise you'd hear if it wasn't for these ambient mics.
If you took a handycam into the stadium and recorded the concert then you would be hearing the acousitics of the venue and of course the crowd. But the mics on stage are usually uni-directional, super cardioid, or hyper cardiod type mics. Which means they cancel ambient sound to varying degrees and only (more or less) pick up what is directly at the head of the mic. Not much crowd noise (leakage) is going to get into a mic 1" off the grill of a guitar amp at arena stage levels. By the same token, a vocal mic also won't be picking up much else except the singer that is singing into it. Especially rock and pop music styles where the singers stay very close, if not touching the mic with their lips.
The S/N ratio of these close mic'ed instruments/vox comes into play.
Things like keyboards and bass guitars are typically DI'ed (which mean they connect directly -Direct Injection) to the sound system (and technically on most larger production the bass guitar amp will also be mic'ed altho that is optional). A DI'ed instrument won't really be subjected to any ambient noise in its channel on the mixing consoles.
Drums, with all their open mics, would seem a source for picking up ambient sounds but that is where 'noise gates' come into play. Those open mics won't really be 'open'... they'll be 'gated' and will only 'open' when a sound of a certain threshold (and for pro equip also a frequency range can be selected) is reached. IOW- the TING of a cymbal probably won't even open the mic, but a solid THUD of a drum will open its mic. But the drum won't be loud enough to cause the threshold to be reached on an adjacent drum and mic. So, except when those drums (individually) are being hit, those mics are 'off'.
And once again, this can and will be all set differently for the house, stage, and broadcast mixes.
As you can imagine, a mass of cabling is necessary for a production of this size.... The logistics have to be a nightmare.
---
So it is a misconception to think the people in the stadium are hearing what we hear at home. They are completely different mixes, mixed by completely different people.
---
Now on the smallest of small scale local TV work things can be done differently. Altho the same basic principles still do apply. I have done some work where the basic house feed was made available to several different broadcasters covering an event. This is typical for a news conference type event. Some people will take just the natural sound while others will take the provided feed.... or they can utilize both and pick and choose in editing (or even live on the fly).
And I've also done it where I've mixed house audio with a split going to the television truck and tv did their own mixing. (And in wearing two hats I've setup a matrix mix of the house band and fed that to the broadcast truck. This mix had absolutely no similarity to the mix fed to the house... I was simply doing what would normally be done by someone else).
But we're talking SMALL scale stuff there.... but the idea is the same at every level (at least once you start utlizing splits).
-Bball
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