Sound for Obama speech earlier tonight... ***?

Killspringer · #1 05-02-2011, 02:06 AM

Man, the White House sound team usually nails the Prez's vox, but tonight was just dirty. Insane verb from the room, skwonky mids, the compressor pumping like crazy and sucking the hiss from the preamp forward at the end of every phrase... it sounded like they were fighting a PA inside the room, which makes no sense to me. Why would there even be a pa in this situation? Wouldn't they use a second mic for broadcast anyways? Seemed like they set everything up real quick.

Anyway, i know its not really bass related, but i had a bit of a laugh about it. Wonder why they made such a rushed job of what was probably the biggest "Obama 2012" soundbyte to date. I was watching from some distance at a noisy bar and it still sounded ridiculous. Curious to hear from people who might have some professional insight into this type of gig.

Joe Gress · #2 05-02-2011, 02:07 AM

Haha! Only a bassist...

iamthebassplayr · #3 05-02-2011, 02:23 AM

My roommate and I both immediately noticed the reverb and compression too ha..

testing1two · #4 05-02-2011, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killspringer

Man, the White House sound team usually nails the Prez's vox, but tonight was just dirty. Insane verb from the room, skwonky mids, the compressor pumping like crazy and sucking the hiss from the preamp forward at the end of every phrase... it sounded like they were fighting a PA inside the room, which makes no sense to me. Why would there even be a pa in this situation? Wouldn't they use a second mic for broadcast anyways? Seemed like they set everything up real quick.

Anyway, i know its not really bass related, but i had a bit of a laugh about it. Wonder why they made such a rushed job of what was probably the biggest "Obama 2012" soundbyte to date. I was watching from some distance at a noisy bar and it still sounded ridiculous. Curious to hear from people who might have some professional insight into this type of gig.

To be fair give it watch on Reuters and I think you'll find it's not nearly as bad as your initial impressions make it out to be. There is a definite increase in volume at about the 1:30 mark and it's possible that increase put the output level on the threshold of the broadcast limiters of whatever station you were watching (also bearing in mind that most cable boxes and TV's have compressors in them as well). The choice to do the speech in front of a giant hallway does provide some challenges with reverb bleeding into the mics but just imagine what Bonzo's drums would sound like in there.

Osama bin Laden is dead: Obama | Video | Reuters.com