# My god, what is that noise?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 21, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863 "2004-08-21T17:11:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/1 "2004-08-21T17:11:38Z")
So, I have the USA vs. Lithuania basketball game on in the background as I write this, and I’m wondering what the godawful noise I keep hearing from the broadcast is. Every few seconds my TV emanates a loud, grating, occasionally screechy metallic sound. It sounds like a few hundred people in the audience bought cheap trumpets and are trying to learn to play them while they watch the game. I know it’s not my TV, because it goes away during commercials, but I find it odd that it could be part of the game because the announcers aren’t commenting on it, and the players don’t seem distracted. Anyone know what the hell this is? It’s driving me nuts. I should add that I rarely watch basketball, so it’s possible that this is something completely normal and I’m just not used to it. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/2 "2004-08-21T20:04:31Z")
> [@Mister V](#): > > So, I have the USA vs. Lithuania basketball game on in the background as I write this, and I’m wondering what the godawful noise I keep hearing from the broadcast is. Every few seconds my TV emanates a loud, grating, occasionally screechy metallic sound. It sounds like a few hundred people in the audience bought cheap trumpets and are trying to learn to play them while they watch the game. I know it’s not my TV, because it goes away during commercials, but I find it odd that it could be part of the game because the announcers aren’t commenting on it, and the players don’t seem distracted. > > Anyone know what the hell this is? It’s driving me nuts. I should add that I rarely watch basketball, so it’s possible that this is something completely normal and I’m just not used to it. WAG – it may be some kind of signal feedback or a glitch in the audio mixing. There is some guy (or gal) mixing the audio so that you hear the ambient sound from the stadium, and the announcers, and a few microphones on the referes, and probably assorted stuff from various camera microphones that are closer to the action. The engineer has to listen to the incoming audio, put it all together nicely (equalizing it so that the volume and tone levels are relativley uniform so that you get a consistent volume level at home) and then it’s broadcast out… That way if one person who is next to a microphone is cheering really, really loudly, it won’t drown out the announcers who are speaking softly into their microphones and you don’t ahve to sit turning your volume knob up and down every two seconds. The announcers wouldn’t necessarily hear anything amiss because they’d be patched in to hear mostly themselves (and probably some bits from the deck so they could be sure to know what the referees are saying). So my guess is that some signal is peaking and it’s getting into the broadcast mix. There may be some signal that is too big coming in that is somehow not getting mixed properly , or is somehow bypassing the mixing stage – occasionally these kinds of glitches can happen with live events. Like maybe a referee has a microphone pinned to him that’s too senstive so when he tweets his whistle it’s too loud for the mic to handle and the resulting distorted screechy sound it makes isn’t getting edited out. ---
**Author:** ![Jplacer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85f322/32.png) [@Jplacer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jplacer)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/3 "2004-08-21T22:04:25Z")
I watched the game too. I think it was air horns. It only happened when the U.S. had the ball. I agree, it was very annoying. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2004, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/4 "2004-08-23T04:20:47Z")
What? This isn’t about Lithuanians and chainsaws? Never mind. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2004, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/5 "2004-08-23T06:43:32Z")
I don’t know what your noise is but the squeeeeeak of shoes on the floor has driven me nuts. ---
**Author:** ![RedDawgEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dbc845/32.png) [@RedDawgEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedDawgEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2004, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/6 "2004-08-23T07:10:35Z")
I didn’t hear [the broadcast] either but from your description I agree with calm\_kiwi: Rubber-soled shoes squeeking on the wood floor as the players start, stop and turn abruptly. Watch closely and see if you can correlate foot movements with the sound. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2004, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/7 "2004-08-23T11:08:18Z")
I just called the game up again on TiVo: it was definitely air horns, or something similar. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2004, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/8 "2004-08-23T12:34:50Z")
Yeah, it’s definitely airhorns. I thought maybe it was some kind of alternative to a referee’s whistle (listen to the beach volleyball, the whistle blows every 3 seconds, drives me frickin’ insane). But it appears it’s just stupid basketball fans being incredibly selfishly annoying. ---
**Author:** ![brix11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@brix11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brix11)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2004, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-god-what-is-that-noise/260863/9 "2004-08-23T13:55:40Z")
Funny, I was just reading a blog post from a reporter who covered that game: > [@](#): > > They sent me to the men’s basketball game tonight and ordered up an in-depth analysis of the Dream Team’s latest crash and burn. My theory: Dream Team Disoriented by Air Horns. Oh, it was painful. No, not watching that pack of yacht sleepers lose. That was good clean fun. I mean it was physically painful. How the heck did the Lithuanian fans smuggle 10,000 air horns past security when I get frisked every time I wear an underwire bra? My ears are still ringing and I’m half-blind from hours of staring at a stadium full of people wearing Lithuania’s team colors of lemon yellow and lime green. Which begs the question: Who decides which Olympic sports are air horn-compatible? Basketball, yes. Fencing, no. Beach volleyball, yes. Weight lifting, no. High dive, no. Balance beam, no. Pole vault, no. Sprints, yes. Hurdles, no. Marathon…knock yourself out. from [http://info.detnews.com/olympicsblog/index.cfm](http://info.detnews.com/olympicsblog/index.cfm)