Grammy's Horrible Sound

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CDB Studios
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Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by CDB Studios » Mon Feb 14, 2005 7:20 am

Why does the Grammys sonic quality suck so bad and when I watch Austin City Limits the sonic quality is soooooo much better?

-Zach

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by RefD » Mon Feb 14, 2005 7:37 am

my semi-educated wild-assed guess:

the Grammy Awards shows are at a venue not purpose-built and owned by the show organisers (making the Grammy's shows much less of a controlled environment)...

whereas ACL does have their own purpose-built, owned and operated TV studio that they can tinker with as they please and not have to completely tear down and rebuild on a regular basis.

that sort of thing is bound to make a big difference.

one more thing (and probably a larger factor audio-wise):
so many acts with so many demands and the final resulting audio for broadcast is likely being run through many layers of multi-band compression set to the "NUKE" position!
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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by djdrake13 » Mon Feb 14, 2005 7:46 am

But they should be able to get some freakin wireless mics that aren't all staticy and interference ridden. And these presenters who were slappin their bodies and hitting the mics.. I thought they would have understood audio and mics better than that.
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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by RefD » Mon Feb 14, 2005 7:50 am

djdrake13 wrote:But they should be able to get some freakin wireless mics that aren't all staticy and interference ridden. And these presenters who were slappin their bodies and hitting the mics.. I thought they would have understood audio and mics better than that.
i'd blame both the sound crew and the presenters, respectively.

really, imo, bad mic technique can't be blamed on anyone but the performer.

the static and RFI... maybe it was just a bad day? :wink:
?What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.? -- Seneca

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by bigtoe » Mon Feb 14, 2005 8:18 am

CDB Studios wrote:Why does the Grammys sonic quality suck so bad and when I watch Austin City Limits the sonic quality is soooooo much better?

-Zach
GIGO.

i need sleep...see ya later...
Mike

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by RefD » Mon Feb 14, 2005 8:20 am

bigtoe wrote:
CDB Studios wrote:Why does the Grammys sonic quality suck so bad and when I watch Austin City Limits the sonic quality is soooooo much better?

-Zach
GIGO.

i need sleep...see ya later...
Mike
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?What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.? -- Seneca

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by lsn110 » Mon Feb 14, 2005 10:28 am

I happened to tune to it for the all-star singing of Across the Universe. It was supposed to be an all-star benefit for Tsunami relief (you could buy the song via iTunes right after the performance). I'd give money to not have to hear that ever again.

3/4's of them were off key. I kept thinking that the monitoring must have been non-existent.

I'm glad I didn't see much more of it.

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by SqueeGees » Mon Feb 14, 2005 10:55 am

Prince won a Grammy for "Call my name".
what a great song... the man has so much talent. iam fargging green
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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by giganova » Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:03 am

SqueeGees wrote:Prince won a Grammy for "Call my name".
what a great song... the man has so much talent. iam fargging green
... and then he didn't show up for his own award! What an idiot!

I was amazed how horrible some of the life performances were. I mean, what was JLo thinking with that cheasy song and that horrible bedroom mockup??? She can't even stay in tune either.

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by scarygroover » Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:04 am

i was not going to see the grammy's but tuned in at the last second.

I was actually surprised that there was an emphasis on live playing this year. so I watched the rest. I thought it sounded great. and I knew someone would post here today saying it sounded horrible... go figure.

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by djdrake13 » Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:07 am

lsn110 wrote:I happened to tune to it for the all-star singing of Across the Universe. It was supposed to be an all-star benefit for Tsunami relief (you could buy the song via iTunes right after the performance). I'd give money to not have to hear that ever again.

3/4's of them were off key. I kept thinking that the monitoring must have been non-existent.

I'm glad I didn't see much more of it.
I couldn't believe that performance!! Did they even rehearse it!???
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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by soundguy » Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:09 pm

djdrake13 wrote:But they should be able to get some freakin wireless mics that aren't all staticy and interference ridden. And these presenters who were slappin their bodies and hitting the mics.. I thought they would have understood audio and mics better than that.
the noise on the mics is clothing noise not really RF. Actors cant keep from hitting mics planted in their clothing, you think a musician that NEVER has to deal with that even understands the principle? You should see the shit we have to tolerate from actors sometimes...

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by djdrake13 » Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:45 pm

There was RF noise.. not just clothing. I've heard clothes and RF noise, and clothes noise doesn't make a constant sound.
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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by aishabag23 » Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:50 pm

... i thought it was incredibly awesome that prince didn't show up to the stoopit grammy's!!

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Re: Grammy's Horrible Sound

Post by soundguy » Mon Feb 14, 2005 1:01 pm

unless they were using VHF wireless form the 80's, any RF noise would have been a blast of white noise or something intermittant, not a constsnt sound. I wasnt there and only saw 10 minutes of that shit in a bar, so who knows. If you can hear people talking over the noise on a diversity wireless system, its almost always clothing noise and not RF. People wear silk to fancy award parties and there is virtually NO way to put a lavalier on silk as thhe fabric has a SOUND that is completely constant which sounds like interference, thats always the first thing I do on a job, go talk to the wardrobe supervisor and see how many silk shirts will be playing in the movie, you totally have to work around silk. People wear silk to hollywood awards, that would be my best guess, but its a guess so...

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