I'm not an audio guy primarily, but I'm a little curious about how they had both podium microphones and lavs clipped to their suits. If on the lav, there's no reason Biden's levels shouldn't match Trump's except a decision by the mixer or a technical flub
We use lavs in tandem with lectern mics to create a fuller sound "image" no matter where the speaker's face is directed. At the top of the debate, as the candidates were introduced, Biden was hot on his lav when Trump wasn't. I suspect Biden was legitimately quieter because of his cold, not the mix.
This was a live show but it was for broadcast. You may be used to matching levels in post but the truth is that as a dynamic live mix environment the rules are a little different and it's very difficult to look at a meter and say "this candidate needs to be hotter to match the other one"
The atlantic had so many articles out within such a short time telling Biden to get out of the race that some of them had to have been at least partly pre-written
This would have been wilder if there was an audience because then the PA would be a factor affecting the mix as well. The fact that this was a soundstage debate made the mix much more forgiving, but also made the debaters much more "naked" to the audience.
I'd do some quantitative comparisons on the recordings, but that would require me to interact with that cursed media more than the 90 seconds I tortured myself watching last night and so nope
bottom line is yes you can do a lot with levels, eq and compression but in the end you're matching a shouter to a whisperer and those are very different sound sources
The more I see people complaining about this stuff from the sidelines the more I'm glad that I haven't had to professionally do any video or photo editing in 20+ years
We use lavs in tandem with lectern mics to create a fuller sound "image" no matter where the speaker's face is directed. At the top of the debate, as the candidates were introduced, Biden was hot on his lav when Trump wasn't. I suspect Biden was legitimately quieter because of his cold, not the mix.
This was a live show but it was for broadcast. You may be used to matching levels in post but the truth is that as a dynamic live mix environment the rules are a little different and it's very difficult to look at a meter and say "this candidate needs to be hotter to match the other one"
