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[Gary Welker]

It was unacceptable, but unless you have actually been in the truck for an event like SuperBowl you have no way of knowing which is harder. If you think there were only 10 channels you clearly have not been in that truck. There was almost certainly more than 10 channels of track, maybe as many as 20 or 30. There were at least a dozen audience mics. There were probably multiple FX returns for each vocal mic. Nothing exceeds like excess.

Mac

Plus the truck was mixing 5.1 surround.  More than likely the inputs were at least 30 if not more.  It definitely wasn't a stereo send from the PA, although he probably had that on the desk too.  I am wondering if he was getting a good mix in the truck and then the 5.1 processors that he had to send his mix to might have been some of the issues too.  I would hope that there was somebody actually monitoring the broadcast mix over the air but who knows? 

[Rory Maguire]

It was unacceptable, but unless you have actually been in the truck for an event like SuperBowl you have no way of knowing which is harder. If you think there were only 10 channels you clearly have not been in that truck. There was almost certainly more than 10 channels of track, maybe as many as 20 or 30. There were at least a dozen audience mics. There were probably multiple FX returns for each vocal mic. Nothing exceeds like excess.

Mac

This is very true, and granted I have never been in a situation with quite the audience or pressure, so I can't compare it to anything I've done before... (I've come close, More inputs, less audience...) But there are certainly people out there who are up for the job.

I'm not saying the console op wasn't, and there's almost certainly something else at play this year (I hope...!) But it does almost seem like he/she spent the set juggling 12 channels of ambiance while neglecting the 'money' channels. Call me old fashioned, but I would see the lead vox vs trax mix to be a little more of a priority to me.

Not being totally serious there, but I think my point is clear enough.

We can talk and speculate about what may have happened all day long, and I will be interested to hear when someone has some hard facts (i.e was the console op, or was in the room with he/she...). I think we all agree that this didn't go according to plan, and all the money in the world can't prevent things from going wrong!

What's the saying... We aren't paid good money for things to go right, we are paid to make sure when they go wrong, we are ready and on top of them!

[Tim Woodworth]

Alex is correct.  ATK AudioTek was the provider for the event from my understanding. And I think alot of the team that was there for the SB is also the team they use for the Grammys. I know that what we heard was NOT the house mix. You could hear Fergie's mic in the house, through the ambient mics, when it wasn't on in the broadcast mix. It sounded to me like there was some form of catastrophic failure right before the show that there was no time to correct. I have been told that they use redundantancy at every level of signal flow, to prevent something like what I think may have happened. It sounded to me like all gain structure, compression settings, efx. and just the overall mix had been lost, and the engineer was in the complete panic of starting over with millions of people listening.
The way that the mix progressed during their show is why I think this is what happened. First.. all of the vocals weren't on, then once they were all on, their gain, compression and FX were not correct. During all of this the tracks were really low, which is what most would do if they were starting over...focus on the vocals first and leave the tracks low, and I am sure the BEPs had a ton of tracks, so there just wasn't time to get them correct and into the mix, so to play it safe...just keep the tracks low and focus on the vocals.
I hope we get the details soon, and I will be surprised if it was a personal issue, and not an equipment issue. That being said if some piece of gear did indeed fail....we may never know the truth. It would be pretty damaging to any manufacturer to be known for that failure.

[Brad Galvin]

I got some interesting information regarding the whole halftime situation late last night that I am curious to see if anyone can confirm. I heard that the international feed sounded significantly better than the domestic feed. Can anyone outside of the US confirm that the halftime show sounded okay? I don't understand why this would be the case, but that's what I was told.

I don't want to get into who I heard this from because I don't want them to get into any trouble, or risk losing a very large account, but suffice it to say the position this guy is in would put them in a good position to really know how things sounded before they reached anyone's television.

Beyond all that stuff, who really cares? It sounded terrible; it set the bar really low. There are a myriad of reasons for why it ended up the way it did. It would be nice if the person mixing would say something, but then again, we've all had really bad days, some of us just have them at times when millions of people aren't in the audience.

[Matt Francis]

From where I was sat (Bristol - UK), watching the BBC coverage, the show didn't sound great and seemed to have exactly the same problems described in this thread. No idea how broadcast works, so no further comments from me.

[James Feenstra]

The lighting was a hell of a lot more complicated, but I thought it looked great.

yeah I always lo\e it when that happens 

[Gareth Hunt]

Disastrous.

But don't we say this every year?

[Bennett Prescott]

It would be nice if the person mixing would say something, but then again, we've all had really bad days, some of us just have them at times when millions of people aren't in the audience.

Yeah, I bet that's a high priority for them. "Man, I think I'll take some time off to see if I can't lose both my arms in this wheat thresher, for fun!".

[Ivan Beaver]

Disastrous.

But don't we say this every year?

But this year was especially bad.  Yeah no two people are going to agree on a mix, but I think we ALL can agree that it was pretty bad-especially for the level it is supposed to be on.

I would assume they did rehersals and they recorded the rehersals and let the performers listen to them (just to double check if it was OK for them-sound wise).

Come on- Tracks and a couple of vocal mics-how much would have changed between rehersal and performance?  This wasn't their first gig ya know.

[alan hamilton]

You could hear Fergie's mic in the house, through the ambient mics, when it wasn't on in the broadcast mix.

Was that what it was or was there a recorded vocal track running a few dB under the live tracks to be used in case of emergency and/or doubling?

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