#3 From SHANTI to The Kapil Sharma Show!
Hi Friends,
Before I continue with my post today, I just thought I should clarify once again, that in this blog, I am posting my personal views and comments. I just want to share my experiences of the past 33 years with my readers.
Today, I want to write about the evolution of sound in the television industry in Mumbai … purely from my point of view. I started working in Mumbai in the field of audio from 1986 onwards, but serious work for television began in 1994. My friends Dileep Subramaniam and Inderjit Neogi asked me if I would be interested in working along with them on a daily soap. I said yes and started working as a freelancer on UTV’s daily soap SHANTI, sometime in 1994.
This was India’s first daily soap and telecast on Doordarshan. It made Mandira Bedi a household name! We used to shoot 6 days a week. Since Dileep and Neogi were established freelance recordists and also had many other projects going on simultaneously, they would ask me to go on the shoot of SHANTI whenever they could not go, which was quite often! So I ended up being the third principal recordist for this serial. In those days, we had a small 4-channel Mackie analogue mixer and used three or four SONY wireless lapel mics and a Sony shotgun mic. (The show was most probably being recorded on Betacam SP then). Our shift would start at 9 am at Rajkamal studios and end at 6 pm. This was considered one shift. If we worked till 7.30 pm, then we were paid for an extra half shift! Today, 9 am to 10 pm is considered one shift.
I started working with other friend and colleagues on some of their TV shows too. Independent work also started coming my way. We slowly moved from 4-channel mixing consoles to 16-channel consoles for a variety of shows that we worked on. More radio mics were required now, and hence a larger channel count on the mixing console. Radio mics at that time used to have such a poor operating range that we recordists used to keep our fingers crossed during takes and prayed that the mics would not suffer from RF drop outs during a take! It was not uncommon to have radio mics of different brands on a shoot and there was a lot of mix and match of equipment that would happen on shoots!
As we started working on musical shows, outboard equipment like compressors and effects units were now required. Analogue consoles meant we had to use insert cables to patch outboard gear.
As shows became more complex and more demanding in terms of audio, the size of the console went up….32-channels, 40-channels. The biggest analogue console I must have worked on was a Soundcraft GB8 48-channel analogue console. If the engineer needed to operate ch 1 and ch 48, there was no way his outstretched arm would allow him to operate both faders...because they were more than 6 feet apart!
The first digital console I got to work on was (probably) the Yamaha ProMix 01. Famous Studios (Mahalaxmi) had procured one and I remember having a hard time understanding this DIGITAL console! I was used to seeing every knob and button on analogue consoles and this new compact console had everything hidden under menus! I once accidentally added reverb to a talky vocal mike and could not figure out how to turn it off! After a few anxious moments, I did figure it out, but it did take me some time to get the hang of digital consoles and the way they worked.
Although Yamaha made many models of digital consoles, the television industry was slow to adopt them. The big PA rental companies (owned by Roger Drego and Warren D’Souza) were quick to shift to digital consoles, but it was almost 2007-08 when we finally got to use the Yamaha M7CL 48-channel digital console (and the Yamaha LS9) on a regular basis.
Today, the Yamaha QL5 is a staple console used on many of the television shows in Mumbai. A new entrant is the Allen and Heath dLive S7000. The Avid Digidesign SC48 is another console that is used for television work and favoured by some engineers, but my personal favourite is the Yamaha QL5. (In another post, I will write about why I like the QL5 so much).
On some shows where there is a small band playing, we have two consoles being used. For example on The Kapil Sharma Show, I had a 64-channel QL5 as well as a 48-channel M7CL. The signal routing on such shows can get complex. The recordist is expected to do a mix for Front of House (FOH), do monitor mix for the band, do a television mix for TV viewers, and also do a 64-channel multitrack recording. All of this being done simultaneously, sitting inside the Sound Control Room! To add to the complexity, we have a variety of microphones being used (lapels, headsets, hand mics, shotgun, etc) and our job is to try and blend them all seamlessly. I normally have a team of people to assist me on such shows as it is almost impossible to handle such a high count of microphones and channels single handedly. Over the years, I have built my core team of associates and assistants to help me work efficiently.
Mixing for television has changed drastically over the past 24 years of my career. From Hi band U-matic, to Beta, to DigiBeta to File based video recorders, from 4-channel analogue consoles to 64-channel digital consoles, from audio signals travelling on thick 32-channel analogue snakes to slim CAT5e cables carrying Dante, from cheap, unreliable and barely known brands of wireless microphones to proper Sennheiser wireless systems with active antennas, from locally made PA speaker boxes to proper line array systems…. we in the television industry have come a long way. Work here can be exciting and very challenging! No two days are the same!
The Pro Audio Industry and the IT industry are merging and the lines demarcating the two zones are blurred. Today’s engineer needs to know as much about computers and networking technology inasmuch as he needs to know about basic audio fundamentals, microphones, speakers and mixing consoles. Because of rapid advances in the field of IT, soon, we could have remote OB vans and remote Production Control Rooms. The production audio mixing engineer may no longer need to go to the studio to mix a television show. He will sit in the Channels office and remotely mix a television programme. And so also will the online edit happen! It is already happening in the West and it is just a matter of time before the advantages of doing that will become apparent and this will become the norm.
In a future post, I will talk in more detail about some of the television shows I have worked on.
A website which I find to be very informative is www.soundrolling.com Do check it out.
My new website www.thesoundblog.in will be up and running in a few weeks time. There, I am planning to put up posts just like these as well as interviews with current production sound mixers working on film and television shows. There will also be links to other web sites of interest to sound engineers and production sound mixers. Hoping to be up and running soon on www.thesoundblog.in
Before I sign off, I want to say a big thank you to my friends, colleagues, mentors, Inderjit Neogi and Dileep Subramaniam, who introduced me to the world of television and films and from whom, I learnt a lot and was able to start my freelance career. Without their encouragement and support, I might never have ventured into the world of audio for films and television.
Before I continue with my post today, I just thought I should clarify once again, that in this blog, I am posting my personal views and comments. I just want to share my experiences of the past 33 years with my readers.
Today, I want to write about the evolution of sound in the television industry in Mumbai … purely from my point of view. I started working in Mumbai in the field of audio from 1986 onwards, but serious work for television began in 1994. My friends Dileep Subramaniam and Inderjit Neogi asked me if I would be interested in working along with them on a daily soap. I said yes and started working as a freelancer on UTV’s daily soap SHANTI, sometime in 1994.
This was India’s first daily soap and telecast on Doordarshan. It made Mandira Bedi a household name! We used to shoot 6 days a week. Since Dileep and Neogi were established freelance recordists and also had many other projects going on simultaneously, they would ask me to go on the shoot of SHANTI whenever they could not go, which was quite often! So I ended up being the third principal recordist for this serial. In those days, we had a small 4-channel Mackie analogue mixer and used three or four SONY wireless lapel mics and a Sony shotgun mic. (The show was most probably being recorded on Betacam SP then). Our shift would start at 9 am at Rajkamal studios and end at 6 pm. This was considered one shift. If we worked till 7.30 pm, then we were paid for an extra half shift! Today, 9 am to 10 pm is considered one shift.
I started working with other friend and colleagues on some of their TV shows too. Independent work also started coming my way. We slowly moved from 4-channel mixing consoles to 16-channel consoles for a variety of shows that we worked on. More radio mics were required now, and hence a larger channel count on the mixing console. Radio mics at that time used to have such a poor operating range that we recordists used to keep our fingers crossed during takes and prayed that the mics would not suffer from RF drop outs during a take! It was not uncommon to have radio mics of different brands on a shoot and there was a lot of mix and match of equipment that would happen on shoots!
As we started working on musical shows, outboard equipment like compressors and effects units were now required. Analogue consoles meant we had to use insert cables to patch outboard gear.
As shows became more complex and more demanding in terms of audio, the size of the console went up….32-channels, 40-channels. The biggest analogue console I must have worked on was a Soundcraft GB8 48-channel analogue console. If the engineer needed to operate ch 1 and ch 48, there was no way his outstretched arm would allow him to operate both faders...because they were more than 6 feet apart!
The first digital console I got to work on was (probably) the Yamaha ProMix 01. Famous Studios (Mahalaxmi) had procured one and I remember having a hard time understanding this DIGITAL console! I was used to seeing every knob and button on analogue consoles and this new compact console had everything hidden under menus! I once accidentally added reverb to a talky vocal mike and could not figure out how to turn it off! After a few anxious moments, I did figure it out, but it did take me some time to get the hang of digital consoles and the way they worked.
Although Yamaha made many models of digital consoles, the television industry was slow to adopt them. The big PA rental companies (owned by Roger Drego and Warren D’Souza) were quick to shift to digital consoles, but it was almost 2007-08 when we finally got to use the Yamaha M7CL 48-channel digital console (and the Yamaha LS9) on a regular basis.
Today, the Yamaha QL5 is a staple console used on many of the television shows in Mumbai. A new entrant is the Allen and Heath dLive S7000. The Avid Digidesign SC48 is another console that is used for television work and favoured by some engineers, but my personal favourite is the Yamaha QL5. (In another post, I will write about why I like the QL5 so much).
On some shows where there is a small band playing, we have two consoles being used. For example on The Kapil Sharma Show, I had a 64-channel QL5 as well as a 48-channel M7CL. The signal routing on such shows can get complex. The recordist is expected to do a mix for Front of House (FOH), do monitor mix for the band, do a television mix for TV viewers, and also do a 64-channel multitrack recording. All of this being done simultaneously, sitting inside the Sound Control Room! To add to the complexity, we have a variety of microphones being used (lapels, headsets, hand mics, shotgun, etc) and our job is to try and blend them all seamlessly. I normally have a team of people to assist me on such shows as it is almost impossible to handle such a high count of microphones and channels single handedly. Over the years, I have built my core team of associates and assistants to help me work efficiently.
Mixing for television has changed drastically over the past 24 years of my career. From Hi band U-matic, to Beta, to DigiBeta to File based video recorders, from 4-channel analogue consoles to 64-channel digital consoles, from audio signals travelling on thick 32-channel analogue snakes to slim CAT5e cables carrying Dante, from cheap, unreliable and barely known brands of wireless microphones to proper Sennheiser wireless systems with active antennas, from locally made PA speaker boxes to proper line array systems…. we in the television industry have come a long way. Work here can be exciting and very challenging! No two days are the same!
The Pro Audio Industry and the IT industry are merging and the lines demarcating the two zones are blurred. Today’s engineer needs to know as much about computers and networking technology inasmuch as he needs to know about basic audio fundamentals, microphones, speakers and mixing consoles. Because of rapid advances in the field of IT, soon, we could have remote OB vans and remote Production Control Rooms. The production audio mixing engineer may no longer need to go to the studio to mix a television show. He will sit in the Channels office and remotely mix a television programme. And so also will the online edit happen! It is already happening in the West and it is just a matter of time before the advantages of doing that will become apparent and this will become the norm.
In a future post, I will talk in more detail about some of the television shows I have worked on.
A website which I find to be very informative is www.soundrolling.com Do check it out.
My new website www.thesoundblog.in will be up and running in a few weeks time. There, I am planning to put up posts just like these as well as interviews with current production sound mixers working on film and television shows. There will also be links to other web sites of interest to sound engineers and production sound mixers. Hoping to be up and running soon on www.thesoundblog.in
Before I sign off, I want to say a big thank you to my friends, colleagues, mentors, Inderjit Neogi and Dileep Subramaniam, who introduced me to the world of television and films and from whom, I learnt a lot and was able to start my freelance career. Without their encouragement and support, I might never have ventured into the world of audio for films and television.
Coming soon: www.thesoundblog.in
Email: cheerag.cama@gmail.com
Twitter: @cheragc
WhatsApp: +91 98211 93831
Email: cheerag.cama@gmail.com
Twitter: @cheragc
WhatsApp: +91 98211 93831
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