BBC 1 Scotland symbol sound

(Baron Trumpington tells me I'm "really sad" for noticing this sort of thing, but I think fellow members of this forum will understand!)

Watching BBC 1 Scotland junctions, I keep noticing the symbol music dipping uner the announcer and then jumping back up again after they stop talking and before the cut to Network. It sounds terrible.

Is there some limitation in their Pres suite setup that stops them from losing the music under the end of the announcement, the way Network do?

Yes. The Channel Directors in the Nations use the mixer output fader to dip the level of the symbol, and bring it back up again to get full-level audio at the start of the programme. In London, where as you know there is a separate announcer and director, the announcer dips the sound using a dedicated fader and then fades it out completely when the programme starts.

Thanks for that! It sounds pants on the air. Can't they have a fader put in upstream of the mixer to give them proper control of the symbol audio? Or am I being an over ambitious, fussy old Hector?

That's except for viewers in Northern Ireland who have a proper audio lag facility (just like London) at this time...

Ah apologies to my more knowledgeable friend for my slightly misleading information..!

Some Channel Directors in Scotland and Wales may use the manual lag facility* to try to get around this, or alternatively a long mix into appropriate programmes will disguise it, but these solutions aren't always possible.

* EDIT: which, I've realised, is what marksi was referring to; we're not sure whether Scotland have this facility though.

Forgive my ignorance - if you have an ident being played out from a local source, a microphone and the feed of network on the same mixer, I don't get why you can't mix those to whatever levels you want?

Not disputing your answer, just wondering why it's done that way when it would appear to be reasonably trivial to fix, to me at least

It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that...

How many hands would you need to mix vision and audio separately at the same time?

The vision and audio are controlled together (usually) by the automation system - and most automation systems were not built with complex audio crafting built in. Name me one channel other than a BBC one which can do audio leads and lags - I don't know of any. (that's a genuine question by the way - if there are other channels with this capability I would honestly like to know!!!)

I've spent a long time working on this issue with various manufacturers in order to achieve a satisfactory result.

Ah, I'd forgotten that the same person was also mixing the vision and contending with automation at the same time

Of course, before Automation reared its ugly head, the Regional announcers had complete control of sound and vision, with faders and cut buttons (or "add sound" buttons for the audio channels) for every source. Complete flexibility. Admittedly, the junctions weren't quite so complex in those days, but at least you didn't have a computer to fight with.

The next bit is REALLY sad....read on at your peril.. .

In answer to the "how many hands?" question, I've just dredged up the following sequence from my memory...

Out of trail, left hand cuts to symbol, right hand opens mic. Speak. Transfer right hand to Network sound fader and take net sound when your right ear hears their announcer stop talking. Meanwhile, eye(s) on Net preview monitor. Right hand now moves to Net vision. At suitable opportunity, coordinate left hand (symbol) and right hand (net vis) to achieve nice mix to programme without catching net symbol. Right hand now shuts mic, before swearing ensues. Simple.

So, if we still had access to equipment like that, it would be no problem for the left hand, which has been underemployed during the sequence above, to be dipping and losing symbol sound, using a suitable fader.
Automation? Pah - who needs it?

A pragmatic solution to the symbol sound problem (barring a wholesale re-equipping) might be to have the region's symbol audio recorded with a sound dip at the approved point, followed by a fade out, so that it never comes to a fight.

Back in my box now.

I really think you should have a go at doing that to see how unworkable it would be - I've used a suite which worked a bit like that and we rapidly ran out of hands so quickly you had to open the mic with your foot. I kid you not. And someone else had to run the trails off tape as here was no way you could cut the vision and audio at the same time and also run the machine yourself.

As to slagging off automation systems, it would be impossible to run a channel properly without one - there are so many things going on in the background these that it simply could not be done manually - running server ports, widescreen switching, epg switching, interactive applications, subtitles, changing slides, changing character generators...

Pre-dipped symbol sound doesn't work either. You don't always want to start talking at the same point in a symbol.

What's meant by the word 'symbol' in this thread? I'm confused!

The BBC term for a channel ident has traditionally been (and is) "symbol".