Sound Engineering Support: A Checklist to Work Through Before You Decide

Most audio problems that reach us were not caused by poor equipment. They came from a brief that never said what the programme needs to sound like. Before anyone talks about microphones or consoles, write down the format: a seated news desk, a talk show with a studio audience, a stage with a band, or a recorded drama with a boom. Each one asks different things of the sound chain, and a support request that skips this step tends to produce generic advice.

Then say what is working and what is not. A team that tells us the presenters sound thin on the desk microphones, or that the audience keeps leaking into the guest channels, gives us something concrete to examine. A team that says the sound is bad leaves us guessing.

Finally, decide who will own the outcome. Audio support is most useful when one person on your side can accept recommendations, test them and report back. Without that person, good advice sits in a document and changes nothing in the gallery or on the floor.

• Name the format and the typical running length
• List the two or three problems you hear most often
• Name one person who will act on the advice

Placement guidance is only as good as the information about the set. Gather the basics before any conversation: how many speakers sit or stand at once, how far they move, whether the set is hard-walled or dressed with soft furnishings, and what noise the room makes when nothing is happening. Fans, lighting rig hum and neighbouring corridors all find their way into open microphones.

Decide early whether visible microphones are acceptable. A lavalier hidden under clothing, a desk microphone in shot and a boom out of frame each carry trade-offs in sound quality, wardrobe and camera framing. The answer shapes everything that follows, and it is better made with the director than discovered on the day of rehearsal.

Check what you already own. Many studios hold a drawer of capable microphones used in the wrong places. A short review of existing stock against the actual speaking positions often shows that the first improvement costs nothing, and that any purchase can wait until the real gaps are clear.

• Count speakers, seats and the space they move through
• Record a minute of the empty room and listen back
• Agree with the director what may appear in shot

Mixing decisions are partly technical and partly about people. Ask who will operate the desk on a normal day, and who covers when they are away. A mix that only one person understands is a risk, however good it sounds. Guidance is worth having in a form a second operator could follow without a phone call.

Think about how much is automated and how much is hands-on. Some programmes suit a carefully built scene with sensible gain structure that a relaxed operator can ride. Others, especially live shows with unpredictable guests, need an engineer actively balancing channels throughout. Be honest about which you are running.

Consider the route the audio takes after the desk. Feeds to the vision mixer, the recording, the commentary position and any remote contributors each need their own checks. Mapping that route on one page, with every point where level or delay could change, exposes weak joins before they cause an incident on air.

• Write the signal route from microphone to transmission
• Decide who covers the desk when the usual operator is out
• Note which channels need active riding and which can be set

Monitoring is the part teams most often under-invest in, because it is invisible in the finished programme. If the people judging the mix are listening in a noisy gallery on small speakers, they will make different decisions from those listening on headphones or a proper reference system. Agree what the reference listening position is and keep it consistent.

Check talkback and cue paths as well. Presenters who cannot hear the producer clearly, or who hear a delayed copy of themselves, perform worse and lose confidence. These faults are easy to fix once named, yet they often persist for months because everyone has learned to work around them.

Plan for how the output will be heard by the audience. Ask what proportion watch on a television, a laptop or a phone, and test a version of the mix on each. A balance that works in the gallery can lose dialogue entirely on a small speaker, and it is far cheaper to find that during rehearsal than through viewer complaints.

• Fix one reference listening setup and use it every time
• Test talkback and cue feeds from the talent's chair
• Listen to the mix on a phone and a laptop before sign-off

Support for a live programme and support for a recorded one are not the same job, and the checklist should say which you need. Live work leaves no room for correction, so preparation concentrates on redundancy, clear fallback routines and rehearsal of the awkward moments: a late guest, a failed radio microphone, a sudden change of running order.

Recorded programmes can be repaired afterwards, but that is not a reason to be careless on the day. Clean capture saves hours in post, and agreed file naming, channel layout and delivery format save arguments later. Ask what the receiving edit or transmission team expects, and record to that standard from the first take.

Many teams do both. If so, avoid forcing one approach onto the other. A studio that runs a live bulletin in the morning and records features in the afternoon may need two sets of notes, two sets of routines and a short written handover between them, so the afternoon crew does not inherit the morning's settings by accident.

• State clearly whether the work is live, recorded or both
• Agree delivery format and channel layout with post or transmission
• Write a handover note when one studio serves two formats

If you decide to ask for outside help, a little preparation makes the first discussion far more productive. Gather the studio plan or a sketch of the set, a list of equipment with model names, and a few recent recordings that show the problem as the audience hears it. Even rough material is better than a description from memory.

Be clear about constraints. Budget limits, installation windows, union or contractor rules and fixed transmission dates all shape what is realistic. A recommendation that ignores them is of no use to you, and we would rather know them at the start than discover them after a plan has been drafted.

Finally, decide what a good result looks like. It might be a written set of recommendations, a day on site with the operators, or a review of an existing setup. Naming the form of the outcome keeps the work focused and lets both sides judge whether it has delivered what was asked.

• Bring a set sketch, equipment list and sample recordings
• List budget, access and date constraints up front
• Say whether you want a report, a site day or a review