Does the golf channel Dub sounds?

[MGajda254]

I have been wondering this for a while and just never had a computer around when the thought popped in my mind. But i was wondering if TGC Dubs the sounds or if they have guys with microphones following the players and getting the actual sounds of contact? I was just watching the tournament and one of the players hit a shot out of the lip of a bunker and it sounded like a pured 8 iron from the fairway, then it made a sound when it hit the green. Also, i remember thinking this same thing during the master's, CBS always makes it seem surreal with all the chirping birds and what not.

[Tupperwolf]

There are microphones everywhere on the course, if you look closely you can see them. You can often catch a glimpse of a guy holding a big fuzzy microphone standing next to the caddy after the caddy backs off of the player so he can make his shot. There are mikes around the greens, very occasionally they will have to move a microphone so a player can make a shot, and they will mention it on TV.

[buttuh]

Common, this isn't a chinese kungfu movie. There're guys with those hyper sensitive spy microphone everywhere recording the sounds. Plus dubbing live TV would be nearly impossible. How can you react fast enough to a good hit vs. bad hit sound to even do it?

[CaliWagon]

I do seem to recal, however. at the Players last year that CBS had a guy tossing balls into the lake around 17 to get sound clips of balls going in the water...

[nobody61]

They have microphones all over the course, they are on each tee marker, and they are on the fringes of the greens, if your on tv and in teh fairway they come pretty close with the microphones to catch contact. you will always see the guy crouching down with the satellite dish at the end of his arm.

[rblmp32]

I've wondered this too, because quite honestly alot of the times the sound doesn't match up with the shot being played. And yes, there are microphones all over out there. During today's coverage, someone nearly hit one that was placed basically in the water at 17 green. Just makes me wonder on occasion.

[Mainlinegolfer]

(1) Golf fans of a certain feather cried "Foul!" after tuning in to a series of PGA Tour events shown on CBS in August, 2000.

 

The viewers were bird enthusiasts who took issue with the network's use of dubbed bird sounds as background during the broadcasts. Problem is, the birds on tape happened to be species that either wouldn't be native to the tournament site or wouldn't be singing at that time of year. First, the Canyon Wren, a melodious year-round resident of western North America (below, left), made a surprise appearance on the telecast of the Buick Open near Flint, Mich. Then the White-throated Sparrow showed up at the PGA Championship in Louisville, Ky., and the NEC Invitational in Akron, Ohio. The bird winters in those parts, but by August it has high-tailed it to breeding grounds farther north. Paul Green, executive director of the American Bird Association, said the mixup was like "dropping in palm trees to decorate the Arctic Circle."

 

(2) Some of the old TV golf programs from the '60s such as "Challenge Golf" also obviously dubbed the sound of the club hitting the ball. It's amazing, every "twhack" is the same, from tee shots to irons to bunker shots. LOL

[InTheHole]

I worked in radio and audio engineering for several years.

 

Just like a musical instrument that has a particular sound, so does a microphone. Every mic has a particular audio characteristic and tends to want to make everything sound the same. I knew radio DJ's that would purchase their own mic (usually in the thousands of dollars) because they liked the audio characteristic and gave them their "radio voice." They would not let anyone else use it.

 

The most difficult sounds to capture are short-lived sounds, like the sound of a book being slammed shut. In fact, that's how we used to test expensive microphones- by slamming books and recording the sounds- the playback would tell you alot about the mic. (Try it if you have any recording equipment. You'll be unpleasantly surprised how crappy it all is!)

 

So, the sound of a golf club hitting a ball will always tend to sound the same with a particular model of mic. When you throw in the limiters and other audio processing they use, the sound can get saturated and distorted.

 

You'll notice this just before the shot- you'll hear the background noise gradually coming up louder. It sounds like you can hear the air and wind gradually getting louder. These are the limiters bringing up the background noise to an average level. Then... whack! The sound of the club hitting the ball saturates everything (pegs the meter in layman's terms) and you get the distorted sound of the club hitting the ball as the limiters try bring the loud sound back to the normal level. Since almost any sound will saturate the system at that point, an easy shot out of the bunker sounds the same as a crisp iron shot from the fairway.

 

It's a tough situation from an audio engineer's standpoint- moments of silence followed by a brief loud sound. Lose-lose situation. Add that to commentators talking in a tower a mile away (at normal levels) followed by commentary from a green-side announcer who is whispering, followed by cheers of 4000 people when Tiger's putt goes in...

 

Trust me, it could sound much worse. Those guys have a tough job making it sound as good as it does.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if they dubbed in some birds and natural sounds to fill all those silent moments and keep some of the limiters from bringing up the background noise too much.

 

By the way, your local top 40 radio station does the same thing with music which is why top 40 radio usually sounds like crap compared to a CD.

[DLiver]

I worked in radio and audio engineering for several years.

 

Just like a musical instrument that has a particular sound, so does a microphone. Every mic has a particular audio characteristic and tends to want to make everything sound the same. I knew radio DJ's that would purchase their own mic (usually in the thousands of dollars) because they liked the audio characteristic and gave them their "radio voice." They would not let anyone else use it.

 

The most difficult sounds to capture are short-lived sounds, like the sound of a book being slammed shut. In fact, that's how we used to test expensive microphones- by slamming books and recording the sounds- the playback would tell you alot about the mic. (Try it if you have any recording equipment. You'll be unpleasantly surprised how crappy it all is!)

 

So, the sound of a golf club hitting a ball will always tend to sound the same with a particular model of mic. When you throw in the limiters and other audio processing they use, the sound can get saturated and distorted.

 

You'll notice this just before the shot- you'll hear the background noise gradually coming up louder. It sounds like you can hear the air and wind gradually getting louder. These are the limiters bringing up the background noise to an average level. Then... whack! The sound of the club hitting the ball saturates everything (pegs the meter in layman's terms) and you get the distorted sound of the club hitting the ball as the limiters try bring the loud sound back to the normal level. Since almost any sound will saturate the system at that point, an easy shot out of the bunker sounds the same as a crisp iron shot from the fairway.

 

It's a tough situation from an audio engineer's standpoint- moments of silence followed by a brief loud sound. Lose-lose situation. Add that to commentators talking in a tower a mile away (at normal levels) followed by commentary from a green-side announcer who is whispering, followed by cheers of 4000 people when Tiger's putt goes in...

 

Trust me, it could sound much worse. Those guys have a tough job making it sound as good as it does.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if they dubbed in some birds and natural sounds to fill all those silent moments and keep some of the limiters from bringing up the background noise too much.

 

By the way, your local top 40 radio station does the same thing with music which is why top 40 radio usually sounds like crap compared to a CD.

 

VERY interesting and informative post--thanks

[KingMike]

Awesome post, InTheHole. Goes to show how valuable is the simple truth behind the veil of popular myth.

[RichB]

I've wondered this too, because quite honestly alot of the times the sound doesn't match up with the shot being played.

 

In deference to my friends who mix audio for a living...* a lot* is relative. :)

 

But in response to what you've noticed, you are not imagining things, and it isn't

necessarily...uhh...trickery (a la *the birds of CBS*).

 

Bear in mind the complexity of what we're talking about, and the fact that human beings

are the ones making it happen. Double digit cameras, double digit replay sources, and more

sound sources than I can count. Ridiculously fast communication is necessary and certainly fails at times.

Not uncommon, at all, for the audio mixer to track (pot up, put on air)...a source that doesn't

match the video.

 

Sometimes, a mixer doesn't close a sound source (tape or microphone),

and you end up hearing the sound from the 15th tee, while watching an approach shot on 17.

Or, he or she tracks (puts on air) the wrong source by mistake.

Simple human error, and the more sources, the more opportunity for error.

 

Sometimes that human error is not the audio persons human error.

Always a possibility that the technical director (person that pushes a lot of buttons so viewers can

see what the director wants them to see...that's me, though not a lot of golf, for me...)

takes the wrong thing...but it's still a *good* shot...just not the right player, so it stays on

so the viewer doesn't notice the error...but now the audio mixer has to find the new source,

and doesn't have a lot of time to do it.

Also a possibility that the folks in replay recorded the wrong audio for the video that's being

shown (you'd probably be surprised by the amount of seemingly live shots, that aren't).

 

Yep, lotsa human error goin' on here. Compounded risks by the amount of sources, and not necessarily

only one person doing each job, due to those sources.

But if we get it wrong enough, we're out of work.

 

(It is very very rare that this mis-matched audio is due to equipment failure.)

 

Rich

[Doc420]

I will say this, there is something going on. I have watched a personnel lesson on the golf channel and they had hit sounds at the top of a swing. I ran live sound for years, but since I am drunk right now I won't try to push this any farther.

[InTheHole]

The digital systems often involved in getting audio and video to you, especially when hi-def is involved, often cause the audio and video streams to become un-sync'd. This is often why you see a slight delay in the video.

 

But you're drunk...

[xtremeinaz]

The golf channel contacted me once to do some voice over work. I went to the recording studio and all they wanted me to do was yell, "GET IN THE HOLE!" over and over. I thought it was silly at the time. J/K :tease:

[SadTrombone]

Common, this isn't a chinese kungfu movie.

 

Common - adjective.

 

1. belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question: common property; common interests.

 

I'm not trying to pick on you so please don't take it that way. I just see this one a lot on teh interwebs. I believe what most are looking for is the contraction "c'mon" or the spelling "come on". This one, like "shouldn't of" seem to stick out to me and I'm not sure why. It's "shouldn't have". As in, it isn't "Jim shouldn't of hit a four iron there". Instead, "Jim shouldn't have hit a four iron there" makes more sense. Not that grammar and spelling needs to be perfect at all ... because I certainly don't have a perfect grasp of the English language. :friends:

 

As for the topic ... yeah, they probably do to an extent dub some sounds. Or they might even dub in the absence of sounds ... like when Kelly won't shut her pie hole and they just mute her. Ah, what a wonderful world that would be.

 

-mini

[JustBecause]

On 3/7/2009 at 2:45 AM, InTheHole said:

I worked in radio and audio engineering for several years.

 

Just like a musical instrument that has a particular sound, so does a microphone. Every mic has a particular audio characteristic and tends to want to make everything sound the same. I knew radio DJ's that would purchase their own mic (usually in the thousands of dollars) because they liked the audio characteristic and gave them their "radio voice." They would not let anyone else use it.

 

The most difficult sounds to capture are short-lived sounds, like the sound of a book being slammed shut. In fact, that's how we used to test expensive microphones- by slamming books and recording the sounds- the playback would tell you alot about the mic. (Try it if you have any recording equipment. You'll be unpleasantly surprised how crappy it all is!)

 

So, the sound of a golf club hitting a ball will always tend to sound the same with a particular model of mic. When you throw in the limiters and other audio processing they use, the sound can get saturated and distorted.

 

You'll notice this just before the shot- you'll hear the background noise gradually coming up louder. It sounds like you can hear the air and wind gradually getting louder. These are the limiters bringing up the background noise to an average level. Then... whack! The sound of the club hitting the ball saturates everything (pegs the meter in layman's terms) and you get the distorted sound of the club hitting the ball as the limiters try bring the loud sound back to the normal level. Since almost any sound will saturate the system at that point, an easy shot out of the bunker sounds the same as a crisp iron shot from the fairway.

 

It's a tough situation from an audio engineer's standpoint- moments of silence followed by a brief loud sound. Lose-lose situation. Add that to commentators talking in a tower a mile away (at normal levels) followed by commentary from a green-side announcer who is whispering, followed by cheers of 4000 people when Tiger's putt goes in...

 

Trust me, it could sound much worse. Those guys have a tough job making it sound as good as it does.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if they dubbed in some birds and natural sounds to fill all those silent moments and keep some of the limiters from bringing up the background noise too much.

 

By the way, your local top 40 radio station does the same thing with music which is why top 40 radio usually sounds like crap compared to a CD.

@InTheHole I know this is a super old post so I don't know if this will even get to you. But I recently started a thread on this topic and was hoping to get your thoughts. Is it still your opinion that production crews do not dub or insert "fake" impact sounds?  

 

[Ferguson]

 

 

 

[mocokid]

10 hours ago, Ferguson said:

 

 

 

Pgatour needs more of this to compete with liv.

[Ferguson]

 

Upon further review - it's a gallop. 

 

 

 

 

[chillybilly]

On 3/6/2009 at 4:11 PM, buttuh said:

Common, this isn't a chinese kungfu movie. There're guys with those hyper sensitive spy microphone everywhere recording the sounds. Plus dubbing live TV would be nearly impossible. How can you react fast enough to a good hit vs. bad hit sound to even do it?

 

But it would be cool to have those cheesy sounds! Examples:

 

Caddie removes flagstick - THWOCK! SWISH! similar to use of a fighting staff

Player hits shot and reacts - AAAUUUGH! similar to villain's reaction to being hit

 

[JustBecause]

On 3/6/2009 at 2:11 PM, buttuh said:

Common, this isn't a chinese kungfu movie. There're guys with those hyper sensitive spy microphone everywhere recording the sounds. Plus dubbing live TV would be nearly impossible. How can you react fast enough to a good hit vs. bad hit sound to even do it?

@buttuh Oddly enough, the sounds are frequently exaggerated as if straight from a Kung Fu flick. Are you suggesting there's zero interference by production teams when it comes to ball strikes?    

[m d g]

So you're saying that "Mashed potatoes!" isn't real?

[JustBecause]

3 minutes ago, m d g said:

So you're saying that "Mashed potatoes!" isn't real?

I don't remember saying anything about mashed potatoes, but what's your opinion on why we see/hear the occasional discrepancy?

[JustBecause]

On 3/7/2009 at 2:22 PM, KingMike said:

Awesome post, InTheHole. Goes to show how valuable is the simple truth behind the veil of popular myth.

I don't know if "popular myth" is a good way to describe the topic considering how many people deny that it's happening. Being that your post is so old, has your opinion changed about the likelihood of production crews occasionally "inserting" fake sounds?    

[jimecherry]

37 minutes ago, JustBecause said:

@buttuh Oddly enough, the sounds are frequently exaggerated as if straight from a Kung Fu flick. Are you suggesting there's zero interference by production teams when it comes to ball strikes?    

in 2009 they didnt have computers as fast as todays discrepancies were probably a mix up of having audio piped in from multiple places on the course. with highend pcs and a 15 second delay you could easily apply effects to the audio of a shot or the audio of the ball impacting a green now days though.

Edited December 12, 2023 by jimecherry

[m d g]

21 minutes ago, JustBecause said:

I don't remember saying anything about mashed potatoes, but what's your opinion on why we see/hear the occasional discrepancy?

It's a joke...apparently not a very good one...

 

But technology is both great and terrible. If you've ever used a sound equalizer, you can see how a TV producer could easily emphasize whatever sounds they'd like.

 

If you're viewing a photo, it's almost never the original. Same for video. All media is fake to one extent or another...

[JustBecause]

4 minutes ago, m d g said:

It's a joke...apparently not a very good one...

 

But technology is both great and terrible. If you've ever used a sound equalizer, you can see how a TV producer could easily emphasize whatever sounds they'd like.

 

If you're viewing a photo, it's almost never the original. Same for video. All media is fake to one extent or another...

Admittedly, the audio world is very foreign to me... Just to make sure I'm understanding your comment, are you saying the discrepancies we hear are the actual ball strikes, but they're just not being "equalized" correctly? Excuse my ignorance, thanks for the input!   

[jimecherry]

1 minute ago, JustBecause said:

Admittedly, the audio world is very foreign to me... Just to make sure I'm understanding your comment, are you saying the discrepancies we hear are the actual ball strikes, but they're just not being "equalized" correctly? Excuse my ignorance, thanks for the input!   

i think he's implying that all shots are enhanced and the ones where it sounds off are the ones where the effects just arent as believable.

 

[m d g]

22 minutes ago, JustBecause said:

Admittedly, the audio world is very foreign to me... Just to make sure I'm understanding your comment, are you saying the discrepancies we hear are the actual ball strikes, but they're just not being "equalized" correctly? Excuse my ignorance, thanks for the input!   

Sound engineers can take any spectrum of sound and 'boost' it. For instance, people with hearing impairment can choose to boost the frequencies of speech on their TVs so they can hear dialog easier. The human voice exists on a fairly narrow frequency range and can be easily isolated.

 

Or (even easier), just make certain sounds louder or softer. That is how, when listening to announcers at a football game filled with 100,000 screaming fans, they are easier to understand. The fan 'noise' is turned down very low compared to what it is in real life...

[JustBecause]

5 hours ago, jimecherry said:

i think he's implying that all shots are enhanced and the ones where it sounds off are the ones where the effects just arent as believable.

 

Ah, I see. Maybe this is what's being said and I'm not getting it, but I'm pretty convinced that at least a portion of the sounds are completely fabricated and not a result of bad "tweaking" by sound engineers. Just to clarify, I'm only talking about the "live" feed, not highlight videos posted after the fact. Are you saying every ball strike we hear on TV is coming from the club, but it's just a matter of bad "enhancements"? Thanks!