Coming back to the original topic discussion of "dodgy audio", the same noises could be heard on the Christmas Lectures that have started again on BBC Four - seems to be that the lack of bodies in places like the Faraday Theatre allows echos and other noises to be more prominent on a TV soundtrack. Much like if you move into an empty house or clear a room out to do some wallpapering/have a new carpet rooms always echo until the furniture returns.
A mate texted me during a recent Arsenal game to ask about a buzzing noise on the effects. I asked a tech producer at a subsequent match, and it turns out there's a noisy equipment room of some sort near the commentary gantry at the Emirates, which gets picked up on the effects mics too. It's been there for years but I guess normally gets masked by crowd noise.
A mate texted me during a recent Arsenal game to ask about a buzzing noise on the effects. I asked a tech producer at a subsequent match, and it turns out there's a noisy equipment room of some sort near the commentary gantry at the Emirates, which gets picked up on the effects mics too. It's been there for years but I guess normally gets masked by crowd noise.
That's like all those pubs that started smelling of bad drains when the smoking ban came in. The smell of tobacco smoke was masking the other smells
Was it not the case that from the start of the first lockdown, many studio mic arrangements had to change? In particular, lavalier mics for guests often seemed to be being replaced with stick mics on a desk stand (like the one in NBH studio E) – presumably as they get touched less often, and it means a floor manager doesn't need to physically help mic someone up?
I've no idea if this has been true on Only Connect, but I've put this change down to some programmes' sound quality deteriorating. Look North Leeds, for example, seemed to be using a mic on the coffee table for the presenters on some weekend bulletins, and it sounded terrible.
One thing Only Connect have done is to give the contestants earpieces because the perspex screens make it difficult to confer. I can't see how that would affect the audio quality of their logs though
Can't find a more suitable thread so I'll put this here: Only Connect 2020 Christmas Presentation (all thumbnails, click for bigger), looks like they pushed the boat out this year:
To make this more fun:
Third in the sequence for 9pm was "11pm Frohes Neues Jahr!"
Third in the sequence for December 2010 was December 1923 Labour
Third in the sequence for Ice Cream Sundae was Oratorio.
Fourth in the sequences listed were as follows if you fancy playing along, as is the solution to the shown connecting wall:
9pm Multu Yillar - fourth in the sequence is midnight/12am - "Happy New Year" - basically new year's greetings as Jan 1st comes round the globe - first was Turkish, second was Finnish and third was German, and 4th was obviously English
December 1910 Liberal - fourth in the sequence is December 2019 Conservatives - sequence is the result of December elections and the winning party
Ice Cream Sundae - fourth in the sequence is anything that ends in OU - sequence is the last two letters are pairs of vowels in alpahbetical order using the last vowel of the previous word as the last but one vowel in the next word - so ae, ei, io, ou.
Connecting Wall solution:
Blue group was officially Kings, but accepted Saints as an answer, green group is dog owner kit, purple group is children's books by Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler, and aqua group has Avengers actors at the end of each answer.
Only Connect used to stay away from throwing Christmas tinsel etc in their festive specials, but they felt 2020 specials needed them, after what has been an appalling year. Good for them. I love the show.
I wonder whether the style of the show doesn't do itself any favours in the sound stakes. I'm not a regular viewer but from memory it has little in the way of background music and there are long pauses for the teams to confer. Lots of opportunity for background noise to creep in.
The studio itself (Enfys in Cardiff) doesn't exactly look purpose built, although it might be a perfectly reasonable facility on the inside.
I think this lack of background music etc and the long conferring times is one of the reasons I like the show
For me it has a certain something I, can't quite put my finger on, but which harks back to older studio shows on BBC 2 in the 80s, University Challenge, Food and Drink etc.
