Question for TV audio guys, how do you mox panel shows, auto mixer?

[[email protected]]

I'm talking about shows like Meet the Press or the vue where there may be 6 or more talking heads each with a Lav. When a new person starts to talk, I have never seen the audio fail to alread be turned up, i.e. they never miss the beginning. I doubt these shows are scripted. Does the mixer leave all the mics up just in case someone starts speaking unexpectedly? It seems it would be more noisy if that were the case especially with all the compression.

Best i can guess is they use an automatic mixer that apportions the total gain based on activity? Is this true or are you guys just really fast?

Thanks
Mark

[Roy W. Rising[_2_]]

wrote:
> I'm talking about shows like Meet the Press or the vue where there may be
> 6=
> or more talking heads each with a Lav. When a new person starts to
> talk= , I have never seen the audio fail to alread be turned up, i.e.
> they never = miss the beginning. I doubt these shows are scripted. Does
> the mixer leav= e all the mics up just in case someone starts speaking
> unexpectedly? It se= ems it would be more noisy if that were the case
> especially with all the co= mpression. =20
>
> Best i can guess is they use an automatic mixer that apportions the total
> g= ain based on activity? Is this true or are you guys just really fast?
>
> Thanks=20
> Mark

All I ever used was the group of mics through an LA-3A leveling amp, plus
HP filtering and sometimes Dolby Cat. No. 43 noise reduction. By keeping
all the mics about 6-8 dB below working level, the person speaking caused
the LA-3A to further "duck" unused mics. A wide shot on a preview monitor
helps, an off-camera talker is identified easily, and someone about to
butt-in reveals that with body language.

--
~ Roy
"If you notice the sound, it's wrong!"

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 1/4/2014 2:41 PM, wrote:
> I'm talking about shows like Meet the Press or the vue where there
> may be 6 or more talking heads each with a Lav. When a new person
> starts to talk, I have never seen the audio fail to alread be turned
> up, i.e. they never miss the beginning.

The Dan Dugan Automatic Mixer. Lots of shows like that use it. He now
has a version hat interfaces with the Avid consoles. There's a webinar
(infomercial) about it here:

http://apps.avid.com/webinars/2013/dugan/



--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Scott Dorsey]

Roy W. Rising > wrote:
wrote:
>> I'm talking about shows like Meet the Press or the vue where there may be
>> 6=
>> or more talking heads each with a Lav. When a new person starts to
>> talk= , I have never seen the audio fail to alread be turned up, i.e.
>> they never = miss the beginning. I doubt these shows are scripted. Does
>> the mixer leav= e all the mics up just in case someone starts speaking
>> unexpectedly? It se= ems it would be more noisy if that were the case
>> especially with all the co= mpression. =20
>>
>> Best i can guess is they use an automatic mixer that apportions the total
>> g= ain based on activity? Is this true or are you guys just really fast?
>
>All I ever used was the group of mics through an LA-3A leveling amp, plus
>HP filtering and sometimes Dolby Cat. No. 43 noise reduction. By keeping
>all the mics about 6-8 dB below working level, the person speaking caused
>the LA-3A to further "duck" unused mics. A wide shot on a preview monitor
>helps, an off-camera talker is identified easily, and someone about to
>butt-in reveals that with body language.

These days it's not unusual to see the automatic mixers either... but
Roy forgets to point out something very important: you aren't seeing all
the microphones! Most of these mixes rely on boom microphones as well as
the lav mikes.

Also, this is _just_ a broadcast mix we're talking about, not a PA mix.
These days with a live audience there will also be a PA mix made for
the studio audience, but that didn't use to be the case. The guy making
the PA mix may or may not be the same guy making the broadcast mix. And
the PA mix doesn't have to sound quite so good.

In the broadcast mix you can have a lot of open microphones hanging out,
more so than in the PA mix. You don't have a feedback problem, you instead
have a noise problem. If it weren't for buzzing lights, rumbling and
whooshing air conditioning, and cameramen wearing army boots, you could
just leave a lot of mikes all over the set open (spaced far enough away that
the comb fltering wasn't a problem).

The automatic mixers make it possible to be somewhat lazy, but the guys
doing this stuff day in and day out by hand still exist. And if you ask
them after the show what it was about they won't remember, but they'll
remember when the first guest turned his head all the way back and
couldn't be heard in the lav...
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[S. King]

On Sat, 04 Jan 2014 15:42:42 -0500, Mike Rivers wrote:

> On 1/4/2014 2:41 PM, wrote:
>> I'm talking about shows like Meet the Press or the vue where there may
>> be 6 or more talking heads each with a Lav. When a new person starts
>> to talk, I have never seen the audio fail to alread be turned up, i.e.
>> they never miss the beginning.
>
> The Dan Dugan Automatic Mixer. Lots of shows like that use it. He now
> has a version hat interfaces with the Avid consoles. There's a webinar
> (infomercial) about it here:
>
> http://apps.avid.com/webinars/2013/dugan/

I rented a Shure automatic mixer once, when doing a three camera coverage
of an academic conference with a six-person panel plus audience Q&A. It
was a typical, noisy meeting room. The mixer worked great. IIRC each
panel member lav was ducked about 12 db (adjustable), when they were not
speaking.

Steve King

[[email protected]]

thanks for the replies..

Mark