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| The
Effanel Music L7 Mobile Recording Studio. |
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Three years ago, the Grammy Awards gave multichannel audio
a huge push into the consumer mainstream by broadcasting its
45th Awards Ceremony in surround. Ever since, the show has
been raising the bar in the quality and complexity of multichannel
telecasts. For one week, the Grammy production team transforms
the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles from a sports arena
into a state-of-the-art venue for the most technically challenging
live broadcast event in the world.
“It’s like a sporting event,” says Hank
Neuberger, the co-Broadcast Audio Supervisor who, along with
Phil Ramone, oversees all the audio content of the telecast. “Except
that in a sporting event, no one cares what it sounds like."
The sound engineers assembled each year for the telecast represent
the cream of the crop in their respective fields, Neuberger
said. “The consensus of these experts
is that this is the hardest show in live television.” And
since the music industry focus of the event naturally attracts
the attention of so many audio professionals, the show is subject
to more rigorous critical scrutiny than other broadcasts. “After
other telecasts, even the Academy Awards, we’ll get a
few comments about the audio portion. After the Grammys, the
emails keep flooding in for weeks.” As a result,
he added, “our
team of audio specialists take a lot of pride in their work
here."
Just what that work entails, and the number of hardworking
people contributing to it are details normally invisible to
the home viewer who watches the final product. A backstage
tour of the Grammys two days before the telecast gave me a
unique appreciation for the task and the combination of behind-the-scenes
talent and dedication it takes to pull it off.
5.1 Music Mixing at the L7 Trailer
I began my tour outside the Staples Auditorium, at Effanel
Music’s L7 Mobile Recording Studio parked adjacent to
the backstage loading ramp. Founded in 1980 and recently purchased
by Satellite XM Radio, Effanel are world-class specialists
in mobile multi-track recording, and the L7 is their flagship
studio on wheels. The L7 trailer is 46ft. long, 14ft. wide,
with 10ft. ceilings, and serves as the 5.1 mixing area for
all the live music performed during the show. The lower platform
at the foot of the trailer is the mixing console,
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| 5.1
Mixing Engineers Jay Vicari and John Harris. |
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where the
5.1 mix is assembled from the 144 channels feeding into the
trailer. Video feeds help the mixers match their sound to the
video content. The elevated producer’s platform in the
foreground overlooks the mixing area. Behind me is the machine
area containing supporting gear. Computers and power supplies
are maintained in a separate “clean room” compartment
with separate access from outside the trailer.
5.1 mixing for the Grammys will be the joint responsibility
of Jay Vicari, who regularly mixes for Saturday Night Live,
and Effanel’s John Harris, a thirteen-year Grammy veteran
whose many credits include recording engineering for the MTV
Video Awards and numerous top-tier live acts such as U2, Eric
Clapton, and Carlos Santana.
The complexity of this year’s Grammy Awards tops anything
in the live event category. “In
the opening sequence alone,” Vicari pointed out, “we’ll
have five bands on stage at the same time, and we’ll
have to be constantly segueing between them.”
Their goal is to recreate the volume, intensity and “grand-ness” of
being on the floor at the Staples Auditorium. “This
is the Grammys,” added Harris, whose credits include
an Emmy for his work on the show. “The
bands have to approach their performances differently, and
so do we. We want it to be a unique experience, so it often
falls to us to re-invent the way the songs sound so they’re
different from the albums, or event he way they sound at a
regular concert."
Harris and Vicari have to create coherent music mixes in real
time out of the 144 channels feeding into their L7 trailer.
The key to managing the avalanche of data is the advance preparation
work, Vicari explained. Prior to the ceremony, each act gets
at least one opportunity to rehearse on the Staples stage.
During these rehearsals, Vicari and Harris work out the rough
parameters in their 5.1 mix and store them as presets in their
AMS Neve Capricorn console. The presets can be recalled at
the press of a button when the acts take the stage during the
telecast.
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| John Harris at the L7 Mixing Desk. |
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Vicari was quick to point out that the presets are only a
starting point. “No one ever does
their song exactly like they did it during rehearsal. A vocal
or guitar may be done differently during the performance. We
have to adjust our mix to capture those differences.” Still, the presets
provide the mixers with an essential footprint to work from.
Once an exotic technology added as an afterthought, multichannel
has now become the standard for recording live musical events,
Harris reports. “These days everyone
wants you to record with an eye towards multichannel,” he said, crediting
the shift in focus to the popularity of DVD, and concert discs
in particular. “We haven’t done a stereo live
record in years."
After leaving the Effanel L7 trailer, I descended into the
depths of the Staples Center to witness the steps before and
after the 5.1 music mixing stage, that the live audio event
undergoes on its journey to our homes...
Philip Brandes (Text and Images) - 12/02/2005
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