USER REPORT X FACTOR

Audio Production for element of the show, as the public mixed both series of , the X Will Douglas speaks to audio broadcast get to vote on who has given the best Factor’s immediate predecessor. Perhaps engineer Robert Edwards about what it’s performance for the final. unsurprisingly, Edwards and his long- like working on this most challenging of term assistant Jane Scutt have been live shows. Such a programme needs as many responsible for the X Factor’s broadcast experienced veterans on its production sound from the very beginning, without a If you’re of that certain age when your team as it can muster, and by giving the break. astonishment at the relative youthfulness responsibility for the live broadcast audio of policemen seems to be increasing in mix to Robert Edwards, the X Factor team Edwards is a firm believer in the maxim inverse relationship to your willingness to have chosen one of safest pairs of hands ‘expect the unexpected’ in live broadcast give those damned kids next door their in the business. The founder (together work, but he has faith in the power of ball back, you may be mildly surprised with business partner Ian Rosam) of planning, and does as much as he can to to learn that the ITV talent show The X UK-based consultancy Video Sound exclude unwanted developments while on Factor is celebrating its eleventh series Service Ltd (VSSL), Edwards has decades air. “Time permitting, there’s no substitute this year. of broadcast mixing experience, first at for sitting down with a pen and paper TVS, where he became Head of Sound, before a job and just thinking. Carefully For over a decade , the and then as a freelancer. VSS helped UK thought out mic placement, system and talkbackTHAMES/SyCo production, satellite broadcaster BSkyB work out a signal path design, and attention to mixer created by Simon Cowell in 2004 workable delivery strategy for high-quality layout are essential prerequisites for following his experience on previous ITV stereo coverage on its dedicated sports any 21st-century live broadcast mix. It talent show Pop Idol, has given hope to a pay-channel Sky Sport in the early 1990s, sounds obvious, but old-fashioned things generation of young performers and their then helped develop 5.1 workflows for the like testing mics, checking that gain and admirers and has become as much part company a decade and a half later, while sensitivity settings are matched, and even of their regular Saturday night viewing. simultaneously assisting Host Broadcast physical tests like shaking mics gently Licensed by FremantleMedia Enterprises, Services do the same for the 2002 and to see if there’s a loose connection can the programme is now produced as a 2006 Soccer World Cups in Korea/ save you from embarrassment on air. franchise in 25 territories around the Japan and Germany. Scarcely a week Increasingly, in today’s fraught productions, world. goes by when Edwards is not involved in there’s less time to do this, but if you can, mixing somewhere in the world, but he sending test tones through the groups and Mixing a show like the X Factor is not also has plenty of light-entertainment paths of the system can often flush out for the faint-hearted. Whereas many experience, and, perhaps most importantly, problems. For example, if a side-chain has live entertainment shows use pre- recorded musical performances for broadcast, the very nature of the X Factor as a talent show means that the (oft-inexperienced) performers have to be giving it their all as the show is recorded. As little as possible is left to chance, so performers are always using backing tracks to some extent, but there’s always a live element to be incorporated, and for the final stage of the competition, the shows are always live on air — an essential can capture more close-up detail, like individual laughs.”

The X Factor also uses over 100 radio frequencies for its various wireless handheld radio mics, body packs, in- ear monitoring systems, and talkback. According to Edwards, every available part of the wireless spectrum that can be licensed for the show is used, requiring the use of special licences from JFMG. “Fred Jackson is virtually our full-time JFMG liaison person,” he laughs. For the first time this year, Sennheiser 9000-series digital radio mics are being integrated into this essentially analogue system.

The brief is theoretically wide open when it comes to the choice of equipment Edwards uses, but sometimes accommodations have to be reached. not been properly set up, you might find reference and a variety of stereo stems There are no sponsorship or manufacturer that your compressors aren’t working as (for example backing vocals, strings, brass tie-ins with the X Factor limiting the expected. And a simple clapperboard test or any other prominent instrumental parts, choice of microphones used on screen, is all it takes to show that you have a sync as the track requires). These Session files for example, but the performers usually problem. Ideally, all of this should be done are uploaded to a secure server, whence have their own favourites, and, this before anything else.” the X Factor production team, who are being a high-ratings Saturday TV show, based at Fountain Studios in Wembley, sometimes it’s as much about the look Preparation for each Saturday night show , download them. They are then of the equipment as its sound. “’m often starts up to two weeks before broadcast, transferred from a Pro Tools HD system asked if we could use a certain kind of mic but of course for most of the three months into a PC running an Adobe Audition on the next show: a diamond-encrusted a year the series is on air, this means Session, which converts them into a multi- mic for a glamorous artist, for example, holding plans for up to three shows in mind channel WAV file. Metronome clicks and or an old-fashioned looking model, like a at any one time. “We usually have about a timecode are added if required, and then Shure 55, for an act with a vintage sound. week to plan the songs,” explains Edwards. the WAVs are put into Edwards’ Sigma The people responsible for the visual “I’m told who’s coming in, whether it’s a live SpotOn audio playback systems. “We design of the show always email me at band or just selected live instruments, or can trigger the multi-channel files from the beginning of the week if they have a whether the vocals are going to be sung SpotOn with one press on a touchscreen,” particular idea in mind for the next show. to a complete pre-recorded backing track, explains Edwards. “From there, the It could be something as simple as having whether there are going to be live backing backing tracks pass into our main studio a red microphone or a blue microphone vocalists, and so on.” console, I can have discrete control to go with some other design elements of the BVs and the main instrumental for a particular act, but sometimes For the last couple of years, the audio parts if needed, and add the live vocals accommodating these requirements can production chain for the show has been or instrumental parts from the studio be technically challenging. For example, as follows. Two musical production teams, feeds and mics, as well as the audience there isn’t a radio version of the Shure 55, working in different studios around the reactions. and there isn’t time on the show to put UK, create the backing tracks for the cables in, because of the quick turnaround contestants in the show to perform to “The response of the audience is an between acts, so when we got that every week, following briefings from the important part of The X Factor,” he request, we had to make a radio version of show’s production team the previous continues. “Whether positive or negative, the mic by building a transmitter pack into week as to what’s required. By the time the reactions feed back to the artists the mic stand.” of the soundcheck for a given Saturday performing. We use a SoundField evening show, which takes place on Friday surround mic suspended high above the Of course, Edwards has to be prepared for afternoon, the teams have produced their audience to help create a sense of being anything when it comes to the performers backing tracks as Pro Tools Sessions part of the crowd, and we have spot too. “One of the main challenges with containing finished stereo mixes for microphones to blend in with that so we the X Factor in audio terms is that you’ve got people with a wide range of abilities there’s a picture of me working in here I was thinking ‘well, each Layer is like a singing into microphones: some with with five sub-desks. separate desk, and in the old days, how very good technique, and some with would I have dealt with that? I would have none at all! On the night they can be “The Apollo has been great, and Calrec had each desk come back into the main twice as loud as they were in rehearsal have been very responsive to feedback I desk on its own fader’. So that’s what or at the soundcheck because they’re gave them — they’ve even implemented I wanted on the Apollo, too.” A DigiCo excited, or half as loud because they’re particular features I’ve asked for. There’s SD11B is also fed via MADI for complex nervous.” Clearly, a reliable approach to a lot of Layer capability in the Apollo, up vocal sub-mixes which require multiple compression is a must. “It’s essential, to 12, and A and B options in every layer. snapshots during the live Group ensemble and not just for the performers, for the Initially, one of the first things I did was numbers, where the 20 hand mics being audience too. The dynamic range of decide not to use any of the B layers, so used have to be juggled very quickly on a this show is potentially very wide: you I asked Calrec to write a software switch line-by-line basis during a song. can go from a breathy vocalist and an for me. I asked for locking as well, so that acoustic guitar playing to a hushed audience to full-on, appreciative screams and applause in just a matter of seconds. However, a huge dynamic range isn’t appropriate for a TV show like the X Factor. We’re not making classical records here: the customer wants a big, bold, loud, in-your-face pop show, and that means reducing the dynamic range.”

To do this, Edwards creates a sub-group of all of the audience mics excluding the SoundField, which is routed to an external Neve 33609 compressor/limiter. “All of the spot mics are compressed as a separate group, and then I add the SoundField on top and ride the gain on the composite. Some fairly severe limiting at 50:1 goes certain key channels remain on certain Of course, the enormous capabilities of on for the applause, and compression faders irrespective of the active layer, a desk like the Apollo can themselves too, at a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio. I prefer the Neve like Simon Cowell’s mic, Nicole’s mic, be daunting. “It can have over a over the compression on our studio desk or whatever. I use the concept of Layer thousand inputs, so you need to find a because you can get a nicer audience faders, where you put the outputs of way of working which will cover all the sound using a piece of analogue kit than everything that’s on one Layer through a unexpected things that can happen during you can with the desk’s internal, digital single fader. If you’ve got a noisy mic on a a live show,” explains Edwards. “It’s down dynamics processing. The harmonics are Layer somewhere and you need to take it to planning again; I’ve evolved certain always going to be nicer-sounding in the out in a hurry, you can’t afford to be sitting standard ways of organizing things over analogue domain than a digital waveform there on a live TV show thinking, ‘Oooh, time. I have all the Audience mics on a ‘going square’.” now, er, which fader is that on again…?’ separate Layer, but I put the composite You need to be able to take out the whole Audience mix on one group fader for the For the last four series of the show, Layer with one Fader. And it’s not just for main mix. I do use the Apollo’s built-in Edwards has been mixing on a Calrec emergencies. I might put a whole band dynamics processing for control of the Apollo. “Before that, we needed so on Layer 3, and then I can fade them out final mix, but of course by that stage, many simultaneous inputs, I had multiple using the Layer fader, instead of having to the audience, the really unpredictable consoles here at Fountain. Somewhere, go to that Layer on the console and fade element, has been dealt with by the from there. The idea came about because external Neve. And Layer 6 is always where I put the Master faders for the mix for iTunes, because it is their work, a live broadcast from disaster. “I used Groups. So, although I can clone those after all, and in modern terms, it’s a record to worry about things going wrong on faders onto other Layers, if I do need to to be sold now, not just a backing track air, but if you go too far down that road, see all of the Groups in one place, I can for a TV show. Now that the chain from you’d never be able to mix a show like go to Layer 6. And I always have some the recording studios where the backing this at all. The only possible defence is to emergency mics on hand. If the radio mics tracks are produced to the track being plan redundancy into your systems. So, break down, or if I have to use cabled mics sold on iTunes is completely digital, all of for example: the SpotOn systems. We’ve because the radio rack has died, I can these things are much easier.” never had them crash on air once, touch access all of those on Layer 4. wood, but just in case, we mirror them, so Alongside the fibre and satellite broadcast that when we trigger one, a second one “It does help that there are two of us — I paths, the final element in the control is triggered in sync. If one goes down, we don’t mix the whole show entirely by room is a JoeCo multichannel audio just switch to the other. There is even a myself. Jane Scutt has been my assistant recorder/playback box, which is used third machine that we can call on, just so for 25 years and she instinctively knows interchangeably as a logging/reference that if a mains bump takes out the two how I like to work. She operates the device, recording everything that happens primary machines, we’ve still got a fall- SpotOn machines, ingests the Pro Tools at rehearsals, the soundcheck, and the back. Some might say that’s overkill — to feeds, and mixes the Grams, which live shows themselves in a multichannel me, it’s just job preservation. includes all of the tracks, beds and format. “For the shows that go out underlays, and I do the rest. Dave Moore is live, there’s not much we can do, but if “Similarly, although we had 20 contestants the Pro Tools operator during the day, and something needs to be bleeped or cut last year, we had 23 or 24 hand vocal looks after the iTunes mixes while we are for repeats or compilation packages, the mics available on the show. The main on air.” JoeCo is there so that we can remix if presenters and judges have even more necessary. And sometimes one of the redundancy — dedicated spares. For This last comment hints at the other mixes production team wants to hear what one example, Dermot O’Leary has a stick mic being created from the performances on of the songs for that week sounded like and a personal mic, but on the second the show. In addition to the main broadcast in rehearsals or at the soundcheck. That’s line input, I also have a spare radio mic mix, Edwards also generates auxiliary what the recorder is for.” for his personal mic and a spare hand feeds for the foldback desks and PA mic. I have four mics for the judges, and if desks — there are separate mixes for the Aside from the purely technical aspects, the radio rack goes down, I have another artists, and the foldback desk has in-ear Edwards sets great store by planning his four desk mics on the table in front of capabilities, so the artists can have in-ear musical approach to the mixes each week, them. In the past, judges have sat down monitoring as well. And while doing all of which necessitates him doing what he and accidentally knocked their personal this, a multi-channel MADI stream of the calls ‘his homework’. “I spend a lot of time mic off, so it’s still working but hanging broadcast mix is also being sent to another listening to current music, to stay aware of down… In that situation, I can switch to control room, a temporary one set up in trends, styles and also technical aspects the desk mic nearest them on the table. In Fountain’s car park. From this inauspicious like how much compression is being used. the meantime, someone can go in when location, the tracks from that week’s show, With the guest celebrity artists that appear the cameras aren’t on the judges and put featuring the live broadcast vocals, are on the show, I always listen to their latest the mic back into position…” He smiles. prepared for iTunes, and uploaded for sale releases before they come in, to see what “I don’t worry about mixing the show to the general public, sometimes within sort of vocal sound they’re likely to want. any more. It’s live TV, so something can minutes of the show ending. “Often, they’ll Do they like reverb, are they using it, and always go awry, but I hope that we’ve done just top and tail my broadcast mix and if so, what sort? Or is it just delays, and if enough planning to get us out of most send that to the iTunes store; sometimes, so, what kind? I try to think about how they sticky situations.” if a track is especially complex, they can like their vocals mixed, because I’m going remix it using the multichannel feed before to be doing that for them. Again, it’s all just sending it. Often, they need to take the planning really…!” audience off the front of the track, or there might be stings or grams that overlap the With the ‘P’ word rearing its head again, beginning, and they want to mix that out Edwards brings our interview full circle, for the iTunes version. Sometimes the closing with a couple more examples of producers of those tracks oversee the how a degree of forethought can save

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