Dancing with the Stars

ABC's 2006 hit series "Dancing with the Stars" was produced at CBS Television City's stage 46, where a stereo SSL console dominates the audio control room. We sat down with the show's sound engineer, Evan Adelman, to talk about how the rest of the show's signal chain was put together.

TC: Dancing with the Stars is a huge show - ABC's #1 show last season, with over 20 million viewers each week. Yet when we visited the show you seemed totally relaxed. What's your background and what other live shows have you done that make you so cool in the control room?

Adelman: My background began with mixing live bands at the club level and continued on to live concerts. Mixing sports was my first television experience. All of this mixing was done live. My next move was into sit-coms and then music specials and award shows. Quite a few of these were live but even the ones that weren’t had to be treated as though they were. I have found that the preparation for mixing a television show is essentially the same whether the show is live or recorded. This is the key to keeping a calm atmosphere that is necessary for concentration.

TC: The show has a huge orchestra for a weekly series. What was the size of the band gear did you use to mix the band down to manageable stems that you could bring up on the SSL?

Adelman: The musical director, Harold Wheeler, put together a 17-piece orchestra with four background singers. These are some of the best studio musicians in the world and continually put out a remarkable sound. I bring all of the sources into 48 channels of Oram Octasonic mic pre’s. Their outputs go directly to two Tascam MX 2424 digital multitracks. The outputs of these machines go to a Mackie D8B 48-channel digital console. I mix the individual songs for each musical piece in the D8B and save them as snapshots. Recording the mic pre’s onto the multitracks allows me a chance to work on the mixes when the orchestra is not available. The stereo output of the D8B is simply brought into two line inputs of the SSL.

TC: You mixed the show on a stereo SSL console, yet the HD feed went out in 5.1. Can you tell us how that was accomplished?

Adelman: Dancing with the Stars was the first live prime time musical competition series broadcast in HD and 5.1 sound. This presented me with some unusual challenges. We are presently in a transition between formats and I wanted to maintain the integrity if the analog stereo feed (which the vast majority of viewers will be hearing) and also present a quality 5.1 mix with an accurate fold-down mix.
I found the ideal device to accomplish this -- TC Electronic DB-8 gave me the capability of creating my show mix in stereo and then generating a 5.1 mix through its “unwrap” algorithm. The incredible control of this algorithm allowed me to create a surround sound that more closely matched a natural room sound than any 5.1 mix I have heard.
A bonus of using this system was having the fold-down stereo match the original analog stereo mix from which the 5.1 mix was “unwrapped”. This was essential for those viewers watching an HD feed but listening in stereo.

TC: What else did you do different on "Dancing" that you have not done before?

Adelman: Mixing live performance oriented television presents an interesting paradox. The PA mixer needs to mix loud enough for the audience to hear and understand the show. The audience reaction, which is a critical part of the sound of the show, is dependent on this. If he runs too loudly, the volume of the PA overwhelms the volume of the audience reaction and it becomes useless to me. The paradox is that the PA cannot run loud enough to create the sound energy in the room required for me to hear natural room reflections. To do this would ruin the clean audience reaction sound.

I found that this open reflective sound I had always struggled to get could be controlled with the “unwrap” algorithm in the DB-8. Being able to control the amount of phase incoherent information in my mix allowed me to add room reflective sound while maintaining the low PA levels which keep the audience reaction sound clean. I believe there is untapped potential in this process and am excited about the possibilities.

TC: Were you listening to the 5.1 upmix or the stereo mix during the show?

Adelman: I must admit I was a bit nervous about this aspect of the project. I didn’t get a lot of time to try to dial this in. I started by listening to DVD copies of the previous season’s mixes, which were analog stereo, through the “unwrap” algorithm. Ed Simeone from TC Electronic knows the algorithm incredibly well and was indispensable in helping me quickly get up to speed. For the first few shows, I monitored in stereo and would spot check the 5.1 and the fold-down. During the rehearsals, I would tinker with the 5.1 and by the third show I was comfortable with monitoring in 5.1 and spot checking the analog stereo and fold-down. This is when it really became a lot of fun. The “unwrapped” 5.1 sounded so natural I had a hard time getting the smile off of my face.

TC: What else did you use the DB-8 for?

Adelman: In this setup, I used the multiband 5.1 NAB limiter algorithm and the stereo NAB limiter algorithm through two of the DB-8’s engines.

TC: ABC was sending a Spanish language SAP channel of "Dancing". How did you accomplish the level control on the Spanish SAP channel?

Adelman: The best choice was to use the same limiter as I was using on the analog stereo buss. I used a TC Electronics P2 with the same stereo NAB limiter algorithm in the DB-8.

TC: Did you find the Auto Level controls in the DB-8 and P2 suitable substitutes for the analog boxes you were using prior to the DB-8?

Adelman: For the last 15 years, I have not mixed a television show without an Aphex Compellor inserted on the stereo buss. I have found it an ideal device for multiband limiting. After my experience with the DB-8 and P2 I have to say these are the most transparent and effective program limiters I have ever used.