The Sound of Music Live

[MCooper]

Did anyone watch The Sound of Music Live on NBC last night/have any insight on how the sound was recorded? Definitely sounded like lavs, but I wonder about placement, how they dealt with costume changes, and playback. Watched the behind the scenes doc, but as usual there was not a single mention of the production sound crew. Just curious what folks thought over here.

-Michael

[John Blankenship]

I watched most of it.

I understand the challenge of such an undertaking so don't take my comments as major criticisms. Here are a few of the things that jumped out at me:

In some numbers, such as the opening "Hills Are Alive..." sequence, the instrumental overwhelmed the vocal sometimes. With that song in particular, the vocal should soar above both the hills and the instrumentals.

Early on, Carrie's lav was okay, but in later scenes her mics sounded muffled as if they were buried under too much wardrobe. They may have been pre-sewn into the costumes to facilitate quick changes and they may not have had the opportunity to make adjustments once the costumes were donned, but more attention should have been paid to planning for this in pre-pro.

There were scenes in which the acoustic difference between lavs and room mics was glaring.

Some of the levels between characters needed to be balanced better.

 

Occasional missed cues for supporting players' mics.

 

Many of the more restrained vocal lines were buried -- the gain on the vocal mics needed to have been ridden judiciously during several especially emotional songs.

 

Then, there was the overwhelming amount of air handling and room noise -- good grief!

 

In areas other than the sound:

 

Much of the acting was "community theater" level.

 

Carrie Underwood did a commendable job with the range of songs she handled, but while she exhibited some charm in the role, her acting was amateurish.

 

Captain Von Trapp was one angry dude.  He left tooth marks on a lot of the scenery.

 

Still, an ambitious undertaking and, despite the flaws, fairly enjoyable. I'm not meaning to be overly critical, just sharing things I noticed.

[studiomprd]

I think it would have sounded better with different mic's...

[Jack Norflus]

I worked on a fair amount of the behind the scenes documentary - but had nothing to do with the live show -nor have I watched it as of yet (I recorded it).

When I was there for the rehearsals all the mics were lavs placed in the hair - key characters had two.

I believe Carrie had wigs for some of the scenes which would account for the difference in sound. They also had several 416s on mic stands placed throughout the place - not 100% sure what they were there for.

While the singing was live the music was prerecorded and played back through speakers on the sets.

The location was far from a sound stage and lit mostly with vari-lights (motors and fans humming and buzzing).

There was also a fairly large cooling system that they brought in - not sure if they ran it during the performance but it was not quiet by any stretch. In addition there were smoke machines placed throughout the place with fans in front of them. That is what I know.

[John Blankenship]

When the show started I wondered if they used hair mics but, boy, Carrie's sure sounded muffled and buried in all the later scenes.

 

I'm used to hair mics sounding much more "open," which is one of the strongest factors in favor of choosing them.

[Jack Norflus]

It could be that they ditched the hair mics during the show for some reason. Or wig was placed wrong?

[Marc Wielage]

Horrible sound on a lot of the show. I think the vocals were down at least 2-3dB lower than they should have been in relation to the orchestra, and there was tons of background noise -- my guess is a lot of HVAC air circulation in the studio. Lots of muffled lavs, off-axis dialogue, missed cues. I also heard occasional "clicks" on peaks, which to me sounded like wireless mic transmitters getting slammed against the limiters (but it could be some other cause). Camerawork was very bumpy, tons of missed focus, weird framings, and rocky moves. 

 

Having said that, it was a terrific effort in terms of the degree of difficulty and the fact that it was 100% live. And I appreciated the fact that the vocals all sounded very real, not a bit of playback or AutoTune. But I think it was undone by the less-than-stellar acting from the lead. I think NBC is thrilled by the fact that 18.5 million people watched the show, so it was a huge ratings hit -- and that's what they care about. 

 

 

 

Captain Von Trapp was one angry dude.  He left tooth marks on a lot of the scenery.

 

I'm amazed he didn't take a bite out of Carrie!

 

I agree 100% with your comments, BTW. I also think the lighting was a little too flat and "soap opera-ey" in the scenes in the Von Trapp mansion and in the fake outdoors scenes, but it looked pretty good at the Convent and in the church. 

[Jay Rose]

I just watched it last night. In addition to the previous comments, it struck me that they may have had trouble adjusting the wireless transmitters. In a single scene, characters would go from almost whispered dialog to singing out. You have to gain the transmitters so they don't distort or crunch the singing, but that leaves the soft dialog down near the mud. Yes, too much acoustic noise as well... but I think some of it was electronic.

 

This presupposes that they weren't using the newer digital wireless with greater range and remote gain... maybe someone has info on what they used.

 

It also supposes that the actors weren't trained in stage whispering, but I think that's a pretty safe assumption.

 

It concludes that NBC really didn't invest as much time or money on the track as they obviously put into picture, set and production design... which for live TV,  was awesome.

 

---

 

FWIW, Variety's overnight review complained about "dialog issues"... but I haven't seen any other critic mention them.

[studiomprd]

" It also supposes that the actors weren't trained in stage whispering, but I think that's a pretty safe assumption. "

or stage acting...

[MCooper]

Here's a link to an interview with the director. She mentions the challenges of audio and how the crew had an "impossible task."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/artsbeat/2013/12/06/sound-of-music-director-on-what-went-right-and-wrong/?ref=theater&_r=1

[Jim Feeley]

"I think next time I would have used two audio people because it’s such a monumental task."

--Director Beth McCarthy-Miller

 

[different layout of same interview Michael links to]

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/sound-of-music-director-on-what-went-right-and-wrong/

[studiomprd]

Director Beth McCarthy-Miller: " everything was wig mikes — basically there were little lavs that were mounted in people’s wigs... just having so many microphones open. "

[soundmanjohn]

I may ruffle a few feathers here, but there's no intention to rude or condescending, just a desire to point out a few things that you all may not be familiar with as far as the way that a musical is prepared and mixed in a live theatre situation. Given that this is my my world and that I've been involved with it for very many years, I shouldn't be suprised by the lack of knowledge about how things are done, but I recently had to correct someone on another forum who stated quite confidently that "all the music's pre-recorded and the show's completely automated" whereas the opposite is true 99% of the time. Every night on Broadway and the West-End (London's equivalent of Broadway) and all over the world, extremely talented balance engineers do a live mix of a pit orchestra and the performers' wireless mics and fire off sound effects on cue.

 

On the big cast shows with kids in like Matilda, Oliver, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and Billy Elliott, the children's cast changes on a regular basis, so the balance engineer (and there's just the one) has to deal with this as well as everything else. The pit mix is likely to be from upwards of thirty microphone channels and every cast member has a wireless microphone, so there are often in excesss of sixty channels of live audio to deal with, in addition to multi-channel sound effects playback systems and sometimes backing tracks as well.

 

These days, the job is made a little easier by the use of digital consoles, so e.q. changes (hats on or off, singing and dialogue settings, understudies etc.) can be handled by program changes. Console manufacturing companies like DigiCo work with the theatre market to produce special versions of their desks and operating software in response to requests from the sound designers and operators, which helps a great deal: however, the manual operation of the show, including line-by-line mixing, is down to the skill and expertise of the balance engineer who, by the way, will pretty much have memorised the show before the opening night and will often not work to a script. A good engineer knows the tricks, like what to do when you have two actors singing face to face to minimise comb-filtering, and will have spent a considerable time in rehearsals plotting when various microphones need to be open. If there are twenty people on stage at once, a complex series of channel mutes will have been set up per song so that only the mics that are needed at any one point in the song will be open and these will be routed via VCA (or DCA these days) groups on the console so that engineer has the relevant faders under his or her hands at the right time, once again effected by desk program changes. But the mics are balanced live against the live orchestra and the mutes are operated live: we don't rely on gates or other automation systems to do that - it just doesn't work.

 

The fitting, maintenance and monitoring of the wireless packs and microphones is handled by another set of skilled workers, who are also expert in camouflaging the mic heads, whenever possible and if so desired by the sound designer. (Juke box musical and rock musicals will often prefer discreet head-set mics to get a better s/n ratio, but most of the time the wig-line is the preferred location.) The A2 will monitor the state of both the RF and the AF of the wireless mics from a side stage position and will have spare transmitters and mics ready and running in the event of a failure. He or she will also carry a repair kit, wig-clips, Transpore and a whole raft of other bits and pieces to carry out running repairs, because you can't stop a live show for a re-take.

 

I believe that good sound for broadcast of a live musical theatre event can be achieved: if you get the chance, try and get to see one of the UK National Theatre Live showings to hear what can be done, but I also know that it can be ruined by circumstances beyond the control of the people at the sharp end: the various different broadcast feeds of the 2012 Olymic Opening and closing ceremonies proved this, with some complete and utter cock-ups further down the chain screwing the excellent work being done in the stadium.

 

From what I've gleaned form my theatre colleagues in the US, there were lessons to be learned from this particular production and it will be interesting to see if things improve if there's a next time.

 

Regards,

 

John

[bigmaho]

Great post John.  Thanks

Billy Sarokin

[studiomprd]

John:  ...well he said a mouthful of great stuff.

[Jay Rose]

John, what do you do about the tremendous dynamic range between whispers and belting? Both in terms of transmitter gain, and (with such tiny mics) sensitivity of the capsule itself?

[Marc Wielage]

I just watched it last night. In addition to the previous comments, it struck me that they may have had trouble adjusting the wireless transmitters. In a single scene, characters would go from almost whispered dialog to singing out. You have to gain the transmitters so they don't distort or crunch the singing, but that leaves the soft dialog down near the mud. Yes, too much acoustic noise as well... but I think some of it was electronic.1

 

I also kept hearing a kind of "clicking" noise on loud dialogue and vocal peaks, which I'm convinced is either a limiter kicking in or clipping (analog or digital) or all of the above. Lots of weirdness. The only way I could think to avoid it would be to have two wireless mics on the loud/soft actors, each with different preamp settings (even mics with lower gain), and use whichever was appropriate for the moment. Tough to do live.

 

I agree with the comments above about the need for stage actors to understand the importance of keeping their voices at reasonable levels for the audience. It's amazing when you realize that, prior to the 1980s, all the Broadway musicals I know of did not use wireless mics, and instead had actors who could belt their songs to the back of the audience -- Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, etc.  And the art of the "stage whisper" has kind of become forgotten over time. 

 

Thanks to John for his comments on the art of mixing live stage musicals. I knew that most (if not all) of these shows were done live, and at least here in LA, I've heard my share of mistakes. At least in this U.S. production, we heard the actors huffing and puffing after certain songs, so I don't doubt all the vocals were real, so I'll give them that. The temptation to have them all mime to pre-recorded tracks must have been tremendous, and I give them a thumbs up for at least trying something so difficult.

[soundmanjohn]

John, what do you do about the tremendous dynamic range between whispers and belting? Both in terms of transmitter gain, and (with such tiny mics) sensitivity of the capsule itself?

 

When I do musicals, which is rare these days as I'm not a great fan of the 'in-yer-face' levels demanded by most producers, I'm usually lucky to have actors who know how to project in a theatre and can modulate their vocal range accordingly. For the newcomers, the instruction is to perform as though the microphne isn't there and to project in the normal way. We can always make them quieter if we need to. A common mic for musicals is the DPA4061, which can cope with the higher levels and transmitters are gained so as not to overload on peaks (with a safety margin added to cope with the adrenaline factor) and adjusted during rehearsals and previews as required. Channel compression might be added for some singers on what I would call 'straight' musicals where the intention is to keep the reinforcement as natural and unobtrusive as possible, but of course with rock shows, the approach is very different, as the audience comes expecting to hear a concert-style system. The last musical I did was a production of John Adams' 'I Was Looking At The Ceiling And Then I saw The Sky' a few years ago, where I was blessed with a stunning cast, an amazing band and a skilled balance engineer. In that case, it was all about having a quiver full of excellent arrows and just having to make sure my aim was true.

 

As far as this Sound Of Music is concerned, I think there might have been a bit of an over-reliance on an auto-mix system, which may account for some of the vocal anomalies.

 

Regards,

 

John

[studiomprd]

Soundmanjohn: " In that case, it was all about having a quiver full of excellent arrows and just having to make sure my aim was true. "

exactly for an experienced skilled archer!

[James Louis]

Sorry I missed all the fuss! Between my twitter feed and this post-mortem, it really clarifies why folks dumped on that production as much as I heard, as well as the central role that sound reinforcement plays.

 

On that note, Marc, I couldn't help but think of the metropolitan opera house, which not only has a very deep orchestra level, but 5 tiers. That's like a stadium. Still, all the soloists are projecting to every seat in the house! Of course, broadway has its own technique and mannerisms and not all spaces are such acoustical wonders...Still the best talent maintains a wide, open and expressive range without sounding like they are yelling at you (often with an unintended tone of anger as a consequence of a voice that is both energized but constrained).

 

I saw Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving in a Chekov piece at BAM, and she could lob a line at you so effortlessly it was like she was sitting beside you sharing an inside joke.

[Marc Wielage]

A friend just sent me this link to an article in TV Technology magazine which has some interviews with the crewmembers, including sound mixer Klaus Landberg:

 

“I was basically handling the sound mix in a room that wasn’t built with TV production in mind,” Landsberg said of Grumman, noting the use of Cedar DNS1500s to quell the ambient sound, some of which came from fans on some of the almost 1,000 moving lights, with more than 1,700 instruments used for the show, total.

 

“Remember, there hadn’t been a live Broadway show on network TV in more than 50 years, when boom mics [which were available, just in case, as was a keyboard player in case ProTools failed, etc.] were common,” Landsberg said. “For this production, I was told that no mics were to be seen on the air.”

 

To achieve that end, the sound crew employed those 62 Shure U1 and U1 Micro wireless mics very carefully, along with a Studer Vista 8 digital console with five digital layers. Also in the mix were DPA 4061 capsules. 

 

The unusual surroundings meant that Landsberg had to address situations a mixer usually wouldn’t have to. “We even had to watch for things like sounds echoing off of the habits of the nuns,” he said. “Generally, I don’t like adding to any sounds because, when you add frequencies, the sounds start getting tinny and jumps out at you, especially dialogue.

 

“So,” he said, “it’s better to just carve off the frequencies in that range so everything sounds natural.”

 

Doh... 62 wireless, 12 TV cameras, and 1000 lights! Tough show. Very interesting article. I'm amazed they actually were using Cedar DNS during the show, because the noise was really overpowering at times. One can only imagine how bad the noise would've been if they hadn't used any NR!

[MCooper]

Thanks Marc, that's a great article. It goes to show that what works well for live theater may not yield the best results for tv/film. The subtlety/low noise floor needed for clean tracks isn't as critical in a big sound reinforcement system. Ah, lighting, once again making our jobs more difficult!

[VASI]

Thanks for sharing Marc!