Your mic check

[patssle]

Anything in particular you have your subjects say to get your audio levels checked?

[backfocus5]

Anything in particular you have your subjects say to get your audio levels checked?


Not really!

[Flaca Productions]

tell me what you had for breakfast.

personally - when i'm checking a mic, i say:
"let me take you on a trip into the twilight zone, i don't need a spaceship, i use my microphone."

[Icarus112277]

Hi I'm with the boyscouts of america and we're selling uncut cocaine to get to the jamboree this year

[SeattleShooter]

When I ask them them to say and spell their name is all the time I need to get a sound check.

[2000lux]

Often I can get a good level while they are chatting with the producer / reporter. Otherwise I aske them what they had for breakfast. It often breaks the ice, gets them to laugh and relax a bit, and most importantly gets them to talk in a normal voice. When people count to ten they often do so in a monotone or quiteer than their normal speaking voice.

[mediatimeout]

I usually sing the "Fifty Nifty United States." That usually gets Master Conrol and the Audio Booth's attention.

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona......:)

[newguyintheshop]

The human torch was denied a bank loan...

The arsonist has oddly shaped feet...

How Now Brown Cow....

and other amusing ramblings from the great Ron Burgandy

[Lost in Alaska]

I will ask them how their day is going. It is something everyone will have an answer to.

[morning mayhem]

My mic check is the live tease right before the live shot.

[Lensmith]

I used to work with a sound man in Detroit who insisted we use the word "syllabance", repeated over and over and over again to check mics and set levels.

I can still hear him today!

[Lenslinger]

personally - when i'm checking a mic, i say:
"let me take you on a trip into the twilight zone, i don't need a spaceship, i use my microphone."
Wow, I thought I was the only one who kept stock phrases on tap for testing microphones. Besides reeling off names of various VD maladies (syphiliis...syph-illis), I enjoy confusing the audio ops back at the station with semi-obscure Jim Morrison lyrics. Don't really know where it started but if you put a microphone in my hand so someone else can check levels, chances are I'm lapsing into my favorite Lizard King rant...

I wanna tell you 'bout Texas Radio and the Big Beat
Comes out of the Virginia swamps
Cool and slow with plenty of precision
With a back beat narrow and hard to master

Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance
Others, mean and rueful of the Western dream
I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft
We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping
This is the land where the Pharaoh died...

By then the audio ops usually tell me to shut up.

[Camera Face]

I always say, "tell me what you know about turtles." Turtles.

[Flying J]

I'll usually say something cheesy like "hey is this thing on" or the always popular stand in fornt of the camera and mouth the words with no voice

[pre-set]

Yeah, that's an old favorite!!!

[Spacey]

The old theatre bow-line (except the bowing is optional now)

"Did I shine my shoes today? 1-2 Yes I shined my shoes today!"

or...

"Peter piper picked a pack of pickeled peppers."

[TheIck1974]

If I'm setting a level, I usually have them say what they're gonna say ... in their full broadcast voice ... not mumbling to themselves as many of them do before the shot. Nothing gripes me more than when you ask for a mic level and they give you '1-2-3-4-5' ... I always tell them 'Say what you're gonna say, at the volume you're gonna say it!' Accurate levels, then!

ICK

[Rambo35]

I used to work with a sound man in Detroit who insisted we use the word "syllabance", repeated over and over and over again to check mics and set levels.

I can still hear him today!


I think the word is sibilance. It has something to do with a hissing speech sound. Whenever I hear that word, it reminds me of the SNL skit when Tom Hanks is Aerosmith's roadie and he's doing mic checks for their Wayne's World appearance. "Sibilance....check one....sibilance."

[BluesDaddy]

At my first station, the morning weather guy liked the beginning of the Gettysburg Address for his mic check...

[Lensmith]

I think the word is sibilance. It has something to do with a hissing speech sound. Whenever I hear that word, it reminds me of the SNL skit when Tom Hanks is Aerosmith's roadie and he's doing mic checks for their Wayne's World appearance. "Sibilance....check one....sibilance."

I know where you are coming from. I even looked up the word "syllabance" in some online dictionaries and they didn't have a listing.

As I was told years ago...syllabance refers to the entire range of "full sound" quality while sibilance only refers to the high peaks and "hiss". Hiss is a part of "syllabance" but the full consonant sounds are also "addressed" in that defintion as well. Not just "the highs".

However if you do a Google search on that word the way I spell it, you will find it's use quite common among sound engineers who seem to have their own specific definition of the word and it doesn't really match up with the "sibilance" definition.

I'm thinking it's a word that's in use but hasn't made it officially into whatever dictionaries I was checking on line. That's my excuse anyway.

I try and write and spell correctly but, of course...there is the small possibility a lot of people (gasp, even me) are wrong and "syllabance" is just "sibilance" misspronounced. ;)

[Rambo35]

Lensmith, we are probably both correct. My problem is that I know how to use more words than I can spell.
Anyway, back to the original topic......I have my talent hold the mic where they normally do, then speak at the level they will during the shot, usually reading the script. If we're pitching a vo/sot, I usually set the level a couple of db on the low side. Whenever we go to the vids, the talent usually looks down and reads from the script, bringing their mouths closer to the mic.

[Xchroma]

I used to have my interview subjects say the alphabet...that was until I was interviewing someone who DIDN'T KNOW THE ALPHABET and I inadvertently embarrassed her. Apparently she was illiterate. OOPS!

[Todio]

OOoohhh Xchroma, that's a foot in the mouth for sure!! (which makes it hard to do a mic check!)

I just did a DOC about the US/Canadian Army joint First Special Services Force from WWII (The "Devil's Brigade") and I asked participants to count to ten. When they did, I joked that they were too smart for the Army and we couldn't interview them which never failed to get a laugh and warmed them up. (the counting wasn't really the mic check, the relaxed conversation afterwards was...) One guy asked me straight off "How loud sir?" which got a laugh from the rest of the crew!

[Ace Of Nothing]

I like to do impressions of reporters at my station and a few other local talent. That usually goes over well back in the control room.
:P
Or if I'm not doing it the sound check, I ask the interviewee what they had for lunch.

[krazycamera]

I'm looking out for the one perfect opportunity to talk down the mic check on a live out of shot, to do the Ned Flanders' doodly schmoodly woodly dandy thing.

[(Sin)ical]

Okay Lensmith, which of the two will you allow into the b-roll version of scrabble? Either way you'll be scoring some major points. I thought Tom Hanks said syphillis...did he say syllabance or sibilance? I simply ask to say and spell their name followed by their title. I do like the True Romance reference, but more Ron Burgandy is needed.

[6shooter]

Level level level level level level level

[BluesDaddy]

There's a scene in The Commitments where the crazy drummer alternates "test, one, test, two" with bonking the mic on his forehead, then screams Boomtown Rats lyrics. That would get somebody's attention at a live shot.

[QueenCityHillbilly]

Testicle 1.
Testicle 2.
Testes 1, 2, 3.