BBC Proms (live)

[A.S.]

The 2011 season at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

[A.S.]

Live! BBC Proms, Film Music .... listen in HD sound here live, evening of 12 August 2011 (UK time).

[Drdennis]

I believe Keith Lockhart, Conductor of The Boston Pops performed last night.

[Paul G Smith]

I watched the last night on HD TV via satellite and while the sound balance was excellent (except not enough organ for me) was disappointed by the amount of audio level compression. This was most noticeable during the Britten Young person's guide and in the National anthem arrangement. Quiet passages would be almost swamped by the upward rushing level of background from the ambience in the hall.

I thought that HD digital was supposed to improve the experience! This obsession with MAXIMUM VOLUME AT ALL TIMES spoils music.
rant over ;)

[HUG-1]

Interesting. Is this broadcast available in the iPlayer? It would be educational to listen to the effect you mention. Links?

[Pluto]

It would be educational to listen to the effect you mention.

It is rather odd that a Radio 3 balancer would allow such a situation to persist. Getting caught out once or twice (during a live show as hairy as the "Last Night") is one thing, but long term...? Odd.

The effect is caused by driving into a limiter set to a longish recovery time - say .5s or more. A limiter set to this configuration is, more or less, a classic automatic gain control. Once the limiter has "attacked" and is reducing the gain by whatever amount it needs to achieve its target level, the idea of a long recovery is that the gain takes a considerable amount of time (the "recovery time") to return to unity after the over-loud input signal has dropped below the threshold point.

The virtue of a long recovery time is that it reduces the tendency to "pumping" but the quid pro quo is as you describe. Any automatic gain control device needs to be used with exquisite care but devices such as limiters are vital in a live situation, especially when largely unrehearsed.

[Paul G Smith]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b014j7xf (UK only)

[Paul G Smith]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode..._Proms_Part_2/
This is a UK only feed.

I'll have a listen to the R3 version which I've also recorded from satellite (for my own personal use only) and report!

[Paul G Smith]

Point taken Pluto about the standard of R3 balances, which are usually beyond reproach. The squashed sound was only apparent on the TV output, which travels via a different broadcast chain.
I hadn't realised that the TV sound chain had an even more enthusiastic limiter than the infamous "optimod" used in my time on BBC Radio, where the excuse for squashing everything to the max was to reach distant FM receivers with enough shout to overcome the background hiss.

Digital TV does not need this sort of processing as the receivable dynamic range of the digital broadcast system is vastly superior to FM, and here's no need on TV to overcome in-car background noises so why do they do it? They could easily reduce the "overdrive" by a few dBs for music programmes just as was done for Radio2 specialist music shows in the evenings and on R3 outside of "drivetime".