eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (Default)
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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 06:34am on 2004-07-24

I've noticed that when I watch a band on television, there are nearly always instruments I can see but not hear. For example, they may show a keyboardist's busy fingers and all I'll hear are drums and guitars. Or I'll clearly hear what one guitar is doing but not a note of what I can see the other guitarist's fingers playing (in which case, if there are keyboards, that'll be the day I hear those instead).

So I've been wondering: is it me, or is it them? Is it the way the bands are being mixed (this is mostly Late Night, The Tonight Show, and The Late Show, BTW, but I think I've noticed the same phenomenon elsewhere), or something about compression for broadcast? Or am I listening at a lower volume than the engineers expect me to, is the little speaker on my television not up to the task, or am I having an odd problem with my ears? Sometimes it seems as though I'm only hearing half the band.

The first clue to gather is: are other people noticing this as well, or is it just me?

There are 6 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 
posted by [identity profile] redaxe.livejournal.com at 03:58am on 2004-07-24
Hm. I dunno; about the only time I see a band on TV these days is while watching Emeril. Since it's a percussion-led band, I'm often watching and listening for those instruments and tune out the others.

Will check it out, though.
 
posted by [identity profile] otherdeb.livejournal.com at 05:36am on 2004-07-24
I recall that when I was growing up, "live" performances were actually lip-synched, because it ws easier on the sound technicians to air a record than live music. I wonder if the techs are returning to that sort of thing. When I had a friend on Letterman years ago, he said they had definitely lip-synched.
 
posted by [identity profile] lilkender.livejournal.com at 07:30am on 2004-07-24
Maybe they're expecting everyone to be like me - can't pick out individual sounds so I don't know what's missing!
 
posted by [identity profile] malada.livejournal.com at 09:16am on 2004-07-25
It could also be that somewhere in the increasingly convuloted path to your TV set, the audio is getting screwed up.

We upgraded several months ago to a mostly digital system at our TV station and there are stil bugs in the system: digital audio breakup mostly. But we've had several cases where audio was coming out of the wrong speakers.

In addition, there's still a battle over sound formats. Some programs are recorded in 5:1 (left, right, near right, far right, dialog : big whumping bass) while most TV stations are barely stereo. So instruments could be dropped out doing the transfer.

And when it gets to the TV station most engineers - if the station *has* any - are so overworked that if they just have sound and pictures hitting the air that's good enough.

-m
 
posted by [identity profile] danbirchall.livejournal.com at 12:40pm on 2004-07-25
THEY (and THEY know who THEY are) have planted technology in your chosen TV-watching area(s) that emits audio waveforms which cancel out the waveforms from certain instruments.

THEY are doing this to screw with your mind. THEY like doing that..
ceo: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] ceo at 05:33pm on 2004-07-25
I've always noticed that, even watching music live. Indeed, I rate a good and well-mixed band by whether I can hear every instrument-- in my inexpert view, that usually means that they're all at appropriate levels, and they're all contributing something interesting.

Lousy sound systems, like your TV's tiny speaker, make it a lot harder to hear every instrument, of course.

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