My biggest takeaway from the first Democratic presidential debate had nothing to do with the issues or personalities being presented to the general public via live television. Despite my great need for a conveyance of intelligible and practical ideas, I lost focus somewhere near the beginning of the second hour when the audio became problematic. Conspiracy theorists can draw their own conclusions, but apparently just as Chuck Todd was about to ask Senator Elizabeth Warren to speak about gun control there was bleed from some wireless mics used in the previous hour. This audio snafu caused quite a bit of confusion on behalf of the moderators and the presidential hopefuls, but fortunately it only took four minutes to sort out the problem and right the ship.
Only Four Minutes???
In audio time, four minutes of dead air or jumbled sound may as well be four separate lifetimes of unemployment as an audio engineer. Even five seconds of dead air on television or radio can cause grown men to cry and older men to have cardiac seizures. Unfortunately for the audio team at NBC, the network viewership for the debates broke previous records, coming in at 15.3 million people tuning in for the fireworks.
Viewers responded quickly to the audio problem and even the POTUS sent out a tweet shaming NBC and MSNBC, chiding them for being unprofessional. With all due respect, it’s easy to blame and point fingers during these fiascoes, but anyone who has ever been in the position of mixing audio for broadcast media or concert events can relate to the pain of failure felt by the responsible parties. While there is no way to justify these situations, any of the engineers who find themselves as the in the center of one of these embarrassing circumstances should know that they are not alone. Arguably one of the worst audio fails was during the 1975 Jimmy Carter/Gerald Ford debate in which ABC lost sound for 27 minutes due to a bad amplifier. While performing at the Grammy Awards in 2016, Adele experienced audio problems that were later explained as the piano microphones resting against the strings. While this error may not be on the part of the engineer, but rather on the A-2 who placed the microphones, it is still the engineer who takes the heat during those awful moments.
The Blame Game
The 2012 Oscars suffered from an audio fail which was later blamed as feedback from the live P.A. system, but while the problem was occurring, it was most likely the broadcast engineer who was taking the heat and sweating bullets as they tried to get the live engineers to rectify the problem. During the 2016 New Year celebration in Times Square, Mariah Carey failed to deliver throughout her performance and of course blamed it on the audio. Although I’m not entirely certain, I do have a sneaking suspicion that while the problematic performance was taking place it was the audio engineer who was fielding the frantic questions and complaints. Ashlee Simpson’s career almost derailed after a failed SNL performance which she claims to be the fault of the band playing the wrong song, but the playing of the track also revealed she was lip syncing on live television. Whether or not this was an issue caused by the sound engineer is negligible, but regardless of the culpable party, there is a good possibility that the engineers were taking heat during the performance.
Lip-syncing has become such a prevalent part of live performances that most concert attendees do not react with outrage when it’s revealed that their favorite performer has been relying on a little pre-recorded help. Beyoncé admitted to lip-syncing the Star-Spangled Banner at the 2013 presidential inauguration, but she is not alone in her transgression, as stars such as Cher, Vanessa Williams, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and even Rascal Flatts have admitted to singing along with pre-recorded vocal tracks. With all due respect, many contemporary artists who play arena shows are in constant motion with a variety of dance steps that make singing very difficult while the steps are being executed and, to be fair, most concertgoers are willing to suspend reality as they realize these events are large spectacles of light sound and video rather than just a musical concert.
As these events are often streamed and not confined to the performance space alone, most engineers, producers and artists are often hesitant to take any chances with the sound in order to avoid moments such as during Paul McCartney’s 1985 Live Aid performance at Wembley Stadium where, in front of an estimated 1.5 billion viewers, Paul’s vocal microphone didn’t work for a whole minute. While the recording crew and broadcast team were frantically trying to cope with the situation it was one whole minute of slow-motion terror for the audio crew surrounded by 72,000 rabid music fans. Anyone who’s ever experienced engineering a live show for even hundreds of people can testify that it takes a good deal of confidence to position one’s self in the middle of a crowd and mix the sound for a performance. FOH engineers are the audio representatives and visible tie to the sound system; therefore if there are any issues with the sound, they will be the one to bear the brunt of abuse from the crowd.
With any given presentation, there are quite a few moving parts involved and any number of things can go wrong irrespective of any pre-show diligence. Electronics can fail, consoles and software can freeze and human error is always a possibility. When one is the FOH engineer during one of these moments, it is a guarantee that an audience member will let you know by stating that which is ominously apparent, “The mic isn’t working!” “Thank you for pointing that out to me, I never would have noticed” you respond as you are actively making a frantic call the stage to have them switch to the spare microphone.
In my life standing behind FOH consoles, I have managed to experience a few fails. Some fails I will admit were due to an error on my part, but the majority were due to a flawed amp, cable, input, bad stage patch or something similar. One of the scariest moments came a while back when I was running a club in Manhattan. I had been petitioning the club owner to update the power to the room, but to no avail. One night, when rock band Soul Asylum was playing the room, we had brought in a fair amount of extra light and sound. The band counted off the first song and, right on the downbeat, the whole room went dark. As I plowed through 1,000 confused and angry people in a desperate attempt to get to the electric panel — with my heart pumping and only my flashlight as a guide — I heard the dulcet tones of an audience member as he screamed the obvious in my ear, “Dude, the power is out!”
