The BBC don't like bass...

[Grassie]

Currently watching Duran Duran live at the Eden Project on the BBC red button service. The worst mix ever. Can't hear John Taylor very well at all, its all vocals and keyboards. Wait until the end when they do Rio. Jesus... What is it with the BBC and live bands? Later with Jools is another. Bass sat way back in the mix, no bottom end at all. I'm writing to Points of View. "Irate of the Isle of Wight..." 😉

[LewisK1975]

[quote name='Grassie' timestamp='1465213675' post='3066123']
Currently watching Duran Duran live at the Eden Project on the BBC red button service. The worst mix ever. Can't hear John Taylor very well at all, its all vocals and keyboards. Wait until the end when they do Rio. Jesus... What is it with the BBC and live bands? Later with Jools is another. Bass sat way back in the mix, no bottom end at all. I'm writing to Points of View. "Irate of the Isle of Wight..."
[/quote]
I assume you've got the sound coming through a more decent source than the TV's built in speakers?

[mybass]

[quote name='LewisK1975' timestamp='1465214458' post='3066134']

I assume you've got the sound coming through a more decent source than the TV's built in speakers?
[/quote]

Always a problem with TV broadcast missing the bass guitarist out......I always listen to TV music through headphones and the little I heard of Duran and Jools show the bass was okay. If you listen on TV to drums you don't always hear the full kit and backing vocals are often way to low. Actually, a lot of large live indoor and outdoor music I've heard through big PA systems often misses decent bass sound, except the bass drum !

[Twincam]

I said last night some of the bass on later with Jools Holland were a bit weak.

[TimR]

I think the problem with listening to music on the TV is it is always going to be a compromise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/c99c3fd4-708b-3632-8c33-13abe97ec557

[Grangur]

Isn't it the same in the video as well?
Even during the bass solo they will show the guitar strumming a few chords.

[sunburstjazz1967]

Which tv do you need for heft?!

[obbm]

I added a sub-woofer to my TV. It helps.

I ran a couple of Facebook threads a few weeks back complaining about the sound on the Michael McIntyre show where all the vocals were drowned in the mix. In a follow on Dave Swift commented about how he despairs of the BBC's sound, especially on the Later show, and it appears some of the band do too.

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1465215892' post='3066154']
I think the problem with listening to music on the TV is it is always going to be a compromise.

[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/c99c3fd4-708b-3632-8c33-13abe97ec557"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...33-13abe97ec557[/url]
[/quote]

That doesn't really tell us anything about transmission frequency balance, or more importantly, how something is mixed for transmission whether it's music or drama or docs...
Bear in mind that the mixing for transmission, as opposed to the sound in the studio, is done in a (mostly!) soundproofed room with (relatively!) full-range monitors. So frequency extremes aren't going to feature very much on a 2" speaker on your telly - unless the mix has been compressed in a frequency-dependent way. And the audio in the mixing room will be full-range and not (digitally) - compressed. So it may sound perfect to them - after all they want max quality - but after being MPEG encoded then compressed to between 128 and 320kbps (depending on what else is going on in the transmission multiplex), who knows what the balance is going to be like!

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1465217530' post='3066175']
That doesn't really tell us anything about transmission frequency balance, or more importantly, how something is mixed for transmission whether it's music or drama or docs...
Bear in mind that the mixing for transmission, as opposed to the sound in the studio, is done in a (mostly!) soundproofed room with (relatively!) full-range monitors. So frequency extremes aren't going to feature very much on a 2" speaker on your telly - unless the mix has been compressed in a frequency-dependent way. And the audio in the mixing room will be full-range and not (digitally) - compressed. So it may sound perfect to them - after all they want max quality - but after being MPEG encoded then compressed to between 128 and 320kbps (depending on what else is going on in the transmission multiplex), who knows what the balance is going to be like!
[/quote]

... and then the adverts come on, and the mix is perfect..! S'magic, I reckon.

[Twincam]

[quote name='sunburstjazz1967' timestamp='1465217088' post='3066164']
Which tv do you need for heft?!
[/quote]

Pmsl!

Non of these new lightweight compact ones I tell you, you need one of the heavy old valve ones.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Twincam

[TimR]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1465217530' post='3066175']


That doesn't really tell us anything about transmission frequency balance, or more importantly, how something is mixed for transmission whether it's music or drama or docs...
Bear in mind that the mixing for transmission, as opposed to the sound in the studio, is done in a (mostly!) soundproofed room with (relatively!) full-range monitors. So frequency extremes aren't going to feature very much on a 2" speaker on your telly - unless the mix has been compressed in a frequency-dependent way. And the audio in the mixing room will be full-range and not (digitally) - compressed. So it may sound perfect to them - after all they want max quality - but after being MPEG encoded then compressed to between 128 and 320kbps (depending on what else is going on in the transmission multiplex), who knows what the balance is going to be like!
[/quote]

Isn't the broadcast mix done outside the venue in a trailer and completely different from the PA and monitor mix?

I agree it doesn't tell us much but if you start to mix in bass and drums you elevate the level of the mix quite a bit and they mention not wanting an overly compressed sound for TV in the article. Which is different to what they do for radio and CD.

[chris_b]

Put the TV audio signal through a hi-fi system and everything will be fine.

[lowland]

I played the Duran concert via iPlayer in my mastering room over full-range speakers and was a little disappointed: John Taylor is a fine player and we weren't really getting him at all with a rather distant sound that was too low in the mix. Although the rest of it was acceptable, there was too much kick drum so I'm inclined to think this wasn't to do with broadcast processing, encoding and the rest of it, but rather (I'm sorry to say) a could-do-better balance by whoever mixed the show, presumably from an OB truck.

That said, in his or her defence those kinds of events can be highly pressured, and it's also possible the feeds weren't as good as they should have been. Less excuse with the Jools show, though, with (I would guess) more setup time.

[EBS_freak]

You think their mixes are bad? The amount of artists that complain about their IEM mixes...

[Jazzneck]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1465219489' post='3066217']
Put the TV audio signal through a hi-fi system and everything will be fine.
[/quote]
That's like wot I do.
And it sorted out the bass sound on the Led Zep O2 DVD too. Just playing that DVD through the tele on it's own sounded like JPJ had stayed at home.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Jazzneck' timestamp='1465225292' post='3066283']
That's like wot I do.
And it sorted out the bass sound on the Led Zep O2 DVD too. Just playing that DVD through the tele on it's own sounded like JPJ had stayed at home.
[/quote]

It still does when I listen to it on my system - JPJ is almost MIA.

The only bass I can hear is the P on In My Time Of Dying...!

[Grassie]

[quote name='LewisK1975' timestamp='1465214458' post='3066134']

I assume you've got the sound coming through a more decent source than the TV's built in speakers?
[/quote]
I hadn't, but I've just put the TV through my Bose soundwave, and to be honest, its still too much keyboards and not much bass. Rio still sounds dreadful, but just a better quality dreadful.

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1465219483' post='3066216']
Isn't the broadcast mix done outside the venue in a trailer and completely different from the PA and monitor mix?

I agree it doesn't tell us much but if you start to mix in bass and drums you elevate the level of the mix quite a bit and they mention not wanting an overly compressed sound for TV in the article. Which is different to what they do for radio and CD.
[/quote]

Depends entirely where it's recorded - in the olden days at TV Centre it would have been mixed in-room for the audience, and in a separate sound control room for transmission.
We (i.e. post production Sound) always had a rivalry with studio sound; our mission was to make it sound as good as possible, their's seemed to be to make it sound as much like the original as possible, no matter how poor the original was.
It's probably not true anymore - but bad mixes appear everywhere; on tv, live, and (eek!) on records!
Either way you can't expect full range sound to appear at all impressive on a highly bandwidth limited tv speaker...

[PaulWarning]

the mix on most modern recordings (and a lot of older ones) is drum heavy bass light, I was listening to Status Quo's Quo album the other day, now that's a bass players mix, funny thing is when they do a 'digital remaster' they bring the bass up, the Beatles and the Clash are 2 examples I've come across

Edited June 6, 2016 by PaulWarning

[toneknob]

I watched it with the sound through the stereo and it was just about ok.

What wasn't so ok was [a] Space Oddity shoe-horned into Planet Earth and [b] so much footage of the middle-aged mums in the audience with their clapping out of time and dad dancing. Now I'm not averse to middle age mums as any passing glance at my internet history will suggest, but you know etc etc.

I liked John's 5-string in New Moon On Monday. Any idea what it was?

[gjones]

I've been told, by BBC engineers, that decent live sound engineers are a bit thin on the ground at the BEEB. Live sound on TV is usually pretty sh*t. The senior, sound engineers may be able to get a good sound on Newsnight but they haven't got the experience to record a live gig well.

Occasionally, somebody who knows what they're doing, will go back at a later date and remix it.Which is why, the iPlayer versions of live music, usually sounds better than the original live feed.

Edited June 6, 2016 by gjones

[FinnDave]

[quote name='sunburstjazz1967' timestamp='1465217088' post='3066164']
Which tv do you need for heft?!
[/quote]

I would gladly heft our TV out of an upstairs window

[spongebob]

+1 on this thread - especially the bass levels on 'Later'....been a moan of mine for years.

Only time I spotted any recently was during Dinosaur Jr.'s excellent spot - could actually hear some mid-rangy growl from Lou Barlow's Gibson Ripper or Grabber (I'm not sure which one's which!)

[bassjim]

I once was on the james whale show, a long time ago before the internet. I was told that the louder you are in the room the less you get heard on the box cause they have to turn you down to compensate.

dont know if this is the real reason or not but its what someone told me at that studio