As of late, I’ve noticed CNN talking heads and correspondents have reverted to wearing giant earpieces and around the mandible microphones reminiscent of an old Madonna video circa the 1980’s. Audio engineers have adequately overcome the necessity of a performer donning any such contraption, especially in a studio. In this day and age, I find this practice distracting, un-necessary, and frankly… quite stupid.
Any expert insight?
Security and reliability?
Maybe the old ones were Bluetooth which has a lot of issues and the new ones use a more secure, robust system. This would require more hardware so the size goes up.
Perhaps there were issues with people eavesdropping on conversations (esp. when not on-air) or interfering with the signal.
I don’t know about the news folks, but we wear headsets with microphones that sit in front of the face. We use them at my place because there are several people in the room and there can be a lot of background noise, so having a noise cancelling microphone sitting in front of their face will pick up their voice and allow the noise cancelling software block out everything else.
Even studios can have a lot of background noise, especially how some of these stations have the newsroom in the background.
Lapel mics and discreet ear buds are typically run under clothing, which takes time to set up. It’s gotta be faster to just slap cans on someone’s head. But I suspect this is more of a cosmetic decision than anything else. Sports commentators have been wearing bulky headsets for years, even when not on the sidelines or in other loud areas. I guess it looks more butch or something, more working class, utilitarian. I dunno. But there’s no technical reason that I know of for the change, lapel mics and earbuds are mature technology.
I agree with the cosmetic aspect but I think it may make it clear that the person is having information piped into their ear in real time. For sports I think it makes the sportscaster look to the audience like they can rely on the other booth people to feed them statistics. So similarly I believe that the visible headsets make the talking head seem even more knowledgeable, or at least connected to information.
I worked with audio for years, and I have friends who worked specifically in television audio for years more, so I guess I qualify as a semi-expert.
I haven’t seen the specific equipment the OP is talking about. It doesn’t say whether these devices are wireless or run through cables along the floor to an old-fashioned audio panel that looks like a telephone switchboard, so let’s assume they’re wireless.
On-air people are constantly getting instructions from the producer and director in their earbuds, which can be really hard to hear in any situation other than an empty studio, even just a conversation with two people. Try it sometime. Have a conversation with one person while listening to a podcast on an earbud and try to figure out what either just said. An over-the-ear headphone is way better than an ear bud in any situation other than single person/quiet studio.
As for the microphones, a lapel or tie-clip microphone is perfectly adequate. But sometimes people, especially women, don’t have an optimal spot on their clothing to clip a microphone to. Is the microphone similar to what stage performers wear or what telemarketers wear?
Despite mic technology having improved significantly, isn’t there still a size vs voice quality issue. That is, the larger (to an extent) the mic, the better the quality?
One of the hints for me that a singer is probably lipsyncing, is when they wear the tiny mic in the first link above. Moreso if it doesn’t a have a cover to prevent popping “P’s” and sibilant “S’s” and “Z’s”. I can’t see (I may be wrong) how that tiny mic can fully capture a singer’s voice. Kpop group Mamamoo who is known to almost ever lipsync always have full size handheld mikes despite having as complicated dance moves as other groups.
Vocal quality over a teeny-tiny microphone is fine. You wouldn’t want to use one as a bass guitar or violin pickup, but it’s not a problem with even a Mariah Carey-range singer.
If they’re not wearing some sort of ear device, whether it’s my example #2 above or something like this, then they aren’t lip-synching.
Sorry, you lost me at the earpiece. Everyone wears an earpiece, often custom. My understanding is that the earpiece is either sending the music and/or their own voice into the singer’s ear because the performance music is too loud. Another use as stated above is to send audio cues from the production crew.
What’s really confusing me is that the performers (at least in Kpop and Jpop) will sometimes speak through their mini mikes during song breaks, but switch to handheld mikes during intros, long breaks and concert end. There’s usually only one or two and they have to share. I figured it was for sound quality, but you say the mini mikes are good enough.
Also, sometimes they’ll take out their earpiece when they’re talking, then put it back when they’re singing.
Edit: With rare exception, even at a prerecorded performance where they’re clearly lipsyncing, the performers always wear mini-mikes and earpieces.
Well, just a few days since my OP, and now I’ve noticed the CNN talking heads are no longer wearing the giant around the jaw microphones. Perhaps the producers became aware of how ridiculous their on camera personnel appeared, and went back to the more discrete lapel mics.
