Hi everyone... I'm new to this place.

I'm starting a new job next week: mixing bands for a TV show... I get to record 30 minutes of 2 alternative/local/independent acts every Fridays. NICE!

I've been in this industry for 7 years now and I've worked with a lot of bands in different contexts (live shows, radio broadcasts, studio recording)... but never for TV.

I'm a big fan of what the engineers on Saturday Night Live do. Most of the time, their mixes sound loud, yet precise... and they sound good on TV speakers.

Any cues, tips and tricks? Compression/Gating, EQing, FX, etc...

Thanks!

Phil, the new guy.

bill_park wrote In the first place, that TV studio has been designed to present the very best in entertainment, so the gear and the acoustics are the best. But one thing to which you should definitely pay attention, and at is levels.  Broadcast follows the  RP200 level standards.  Even shows thsat you think might be 'hot', aren't.  MTV, for example, will not play any video with ANY material over -6.  They simply will not air it, no matter who it is from.

You mean -6 dBFS (full-scale) I hope...  I'm a big VU fan. I only use full-scale to set a peak limiter.

I've atteneded many industrials wherein the idot who mixed the content for some of the DVDs went with full scale digital, and of course they were embarassed as their material overloaded every player in the place and the presenters could not show their work until the video crew rounded up some in line pads. Also, be sure to mix on full range speakers.  I have experienced NS10 mixes played back on full range systems,a nd it can get pretty ugly pretty quickly.   Bill

I'll look into the monitoring they have...

Anyone knows how they get these huge/snappy/loud drum-sounds... bus-compression? kick/snare gating?

That's good stuff... keep 'em coming!

Thanks