Was recently contracted to handle the audio for a series of engagements with Mike Pence (If you’re not from the United States and may not know, he was the former vice president of the country during the Donald Trump administration).
Was on location with him last week. He doesn’t wear a lapel mic or a headworn when he talks, most likely because of the risk of conversations being intercepted or him simply forgetting to turn his mic off when he’s backstage, then sensitive info getting leaked. He’s got a really wonky mic technique, where he likes to lean into the mic and get louder at certain times. It’s a pretty constant thing I gotta deal with but it’s extreme enough to where I can’t set vocal rider to tame these. I pretty much gotta clip gain these things down manually.
I’ve been at this first one for a day just getting the introductory performances mixed… just now getting to the keynote speech here.
Signal chain is gonna be pretty basic… just Filter > EQ > Gate > Comp > L1 limiter. He doesn’t need a de-esser. He’s not very hissy. Probably gonna hit these with Izotope cleanup after the dynamics are under control and the background noise is taken treated.
Here’s what the largely untreated audio sounds like… this is with just a Waves Q1 low-cut filter and an R-vox. These projects were commissioned by the Fox TV network.
I can’t play examples of this stuff in here yet, but this is what the audio looks like when he leans into the podium mic lol.
Wow, quite a gig! So it looks like you’re still doing audio stuff from time to time.
Is some of that plosives? If he gets louder his plosives (PBTGK) would also probably get stronger. Of course there’s the proximity effect too. I’m frequently surprised that well known public speakers don’t always have good control of things like that, both their voice technique and mic technique.
So awesome @Jonathan! I appreciate you sharing what you can about this. I had a friend locally that had run sound for a bunch of bands, but had the opportunity to run live sound for 3 presidents. I cant even imagine how that felt. I mean, the setup isn’t complicated, but I’d sure feel the pressure regardless. lol
No they don’t. We all can speak our truth. You can argue, or agree, or disagree. We’re all messengers. Nobody needs to shoot any messengers, just decide who is being truthful. That’s democracy, if you think about it. When you have 26 candidates in one party vying for an election, who do you listen to? Even the best is less than 100% correct, but perhaps worthy of your support. “The best of the worst”, as they say. Who are you willing to support? Ideally, the best ideas raise to the top, and the others are eliminated. Nothing is perfect. What we should eliminate is bad ideas and corrupt politicians. That would solve a lot of problems.
Ultimately, those campaigning for “We The People” would get the most support and would do the jobs We The People elect our Public Servants to execute. Until then, anyone seeking to profit from their elected position is a traitor and criminal. Exorcise them immediately, or you’re complicit in graft and corruption!
Why should anyone fear the truth?