How did this happen?

B

Bruce Watson

Veteran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OURCbPVAqqY

I'm only interested in the audio in this political ad. Not discussing politics, only audio.

The computer I'm using only has headphones for audio; I'm using my Sony MDR-7506s. The audio sounds very odd. Anyone know what caused it? I'm just curious -- trying to learn from the mistakes of others, etc.
 
There's definitely something funky in there... interplay between left and right channels.

When I A/B each one, it sounds a little brighter and like there's a little more room reflection in the right channel, where as the left is fairly dry and sounds a bit chesty (chest resonance), which tells me that this was recorded with a lav/boom split and passed on through that way.
 
They needed to choose one track or the other and copy that to both L and R outputs. Either one sounds decent by itself, but the pseudo-stereo effect of them played together is unsettling.

- Greg
 
Richard Crowley said:
Looks like a "content preview" and not a finished production, so that could account for the raw audio tracks.
Click to expand...

Sadly, I think this is the final product. It's on his official campaign YT channel, and embedded already in his campaign website.
 
Alex H. said:
There's definitely something funky in there... interplay between left and right channels.

When I A/B each one, it sounds a little brighter and like there's a little more room reflection in the right channel, where as the left is fairly dry and sounds a bit chesty (chest resonance), which tells me that this was recorded with a lav/boom split and passed on through that way.
Click to expand...

That's plausible. I was thinking it was some kind of "manufactured stereo" from a mono source, but the lav/boom mix is almost certainly what it is. That's... unfortunate.

On the plus side, this is another bit of education for me. I'll try hard not to make this particular mistake myself.
 
Bruce Watson said:
I'll try hard not to make this particular mistake myself.
Click to expand...

To further the lesson, recording with a lav/boom split is actually good practice. The boom is a failsafe for the wireless. In post, a choice must be made between the two. Take the best channel and ditch the other, then center-pan the dialog (or fill-left or fill-right, depending on what your NLE offers).
 
As a fun anecdote that relates. When the Beatles recorded most of their records they mastered in two track mono with the vocals or at least lead vocals on one track and everything else on the other. THese would get mixed down to the mono master for cutting the LP. For "stereo" which nobody cared a lot about they would keep the vocals center and play with the other track to create the "stereo" version.

When they sent copies of the master to Capitol Records in the US they cut the LPs from the two track master as if it were stereo. Which is why if you find any original Capitol release Beatles albums all the vocals come out of one speaker and everything else is on the other. I have some and it's really weird, even on speakers.


As to the video it's probably OK on speakers, especially TV speakers. On headphones it's very annoying, and unfortunately not rare.
 
Noiz2 said:
As to the video it's probably OK on speakers, especially TV speakers. On headphones it's very annoying, and unfortunately not rare.
Click to expand...

I played it first on the decent but not stellar Cambridge Soundworks speakers on my desktop computer at work, and could immediately hear that there was a problem. Of course I'd been cued in by the OP to listen carefully, but it was pretty obvious even on midrange equipment in my noisy office.

- Greg
 
I think it is more like an encoding problem rather than a split mic as the image is shifting with the modulation.

if it was a lav/boom or even an M/S mic set-up I doubt you would get this image adjustment associated with the amplitude, it could possibly also be a dolby encode from 5.1 to stereo that has gone wrong.
 
Sounds like phase errors.... EXACTLY like a mono microphone plugged into a stereo input of a DSLR.
So one side of the wave goes to the L channel and the R channel has the other side of the audio signal.
Mono sum both L & R and you end up with a very thin, virtually non existent signal.
 
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