Are they going to fix the audio in the Stadium?
It's a brand new sound system yet here we are in week 7 and the audio is still hit or miss. It has improved since week one but the improvements have plateaued.
The James Earl Jones video sounded loud and strong but then Charles Woodson sounded like a whisper in his hype video later in the game. It seems like a coin flip if the guy's mic on the field during timeouts is going to work. I can't understand what Carl Grapentine is saying half the time. Music cuts in and out the entire game. Anyone else frustrated with this? and SIAP
October 18th, 2023 at 8:46 AM ^
This is going to sound too simple and I haven't attended a game this year but I'm wondering if the stadium game day folks do a run-through of their program prior to the game, say on a Thursday or Friday, to make sure all this shit works or needs editing?
I mean, I do this whenever I host meetings of 10-15 partners but I would think hosting 100,000+ customers would warrant a similar check?
October 18th, 2023 at 8:53 AM ^
Seems like they obtained the funds for the massive upgrade but not for qualified people to operate it. There's probably a kid in a booth reading an instruction manual trying to figure it out.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:17 AM ^
Maybe not a run-through but at about 10:30 they did a mic check in front of about 2000 fans in the drizzle. For about a minute and a half - dead air, “check”, “ mic check”, more dead air, “check, check”. Brought me back to sixth grade assembly in the Cafetorium.
October 18th, 2023 at 11:01 AM ^
As someone who lives in the neighborhood, yes they do. I usually hear it throughout Friday afternoon/ evening.
October 18th, 2023 at 8:47 AM ^
I have been wondering the same thing! For the first few weeks, the sound was only coming out of the north end scoreboard which made it harder to hear. I didn't notice last Saturday if it was the same way.
October 18th, 2023 at 8:51 AM ^
yeah there are no speakers on the south scoreboard probably to avoid an echo. There's gotta be a better system than what they're using though.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:27 AM ^
Sound takes 0.3 seconds to travel 100 yards so you are correct that they have to be from a single point to avoid a bad echo effect. As for not coming from one of the boxes, I assume they use the scoreboard to make the experience in the box better. It would be really loud in the box otherwise and screw those poor bastards under the scoreboard /s
October 18th, 2023 at 11:27 AM ^
"Sound takes 0.3 seconds to travel 100 yards so you are correct that they have to be from a single point to avoid a bad echo effect."
This is why sound mixing equipment exists. Also, the speakers should be on one long side of the stadium, not in an end zone. Whoever decided that it would be fine on only one endzone scoreboard should not be in the sound system design business.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:04 AM ^
There isn’t supposed to be sound from the south board. It was that way with the old system too.
I’m not an audio engineer, but it seems like speakers along the length of one of the boxes would have been a better solution… but maybe I’m totally wrong on that.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:40 PM ^
Agreed that the sound would be better to be along one -- or both (may less echo ability since a shorter distance?) -- sides of the boxes rather than one long way, but that isn't how it was set up previously, and they seemed to want to stick with what they had (even though it seems kind of trashy in 2023).
October 18th, 2023 at 9:07 AM ^
It seems like a coin flip if the guy's mic on the field during timeouts is going to work.
you say that like it's a bad thing.
on the other hand, thank god it worked to intro the "go! blue!" cheer on saturday. because we wouldn't have known how that works without a bearded dipshit shouting at us.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:17 AM ^
How else are we going to know that Victor the Frisbee dog is going to go catch frisbees??
October 18th, 2023 at 12:33 PM ^
It is a bad thing when the coin flip comes up 'heads' and the mic works.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:19 AM ^
Jesus you people want EVERYTHING. Look, our stadium overlords were kind and benevolent enough to give the great unwashed that super-cool, multi-million dollar new lighting of the seats that us peons can enjoy for a few minutes during the two night games a year and now your bitching about the sound system?
Go buy a $10 water and STFU.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:29 AM ^
speaking of $10 bottled water, my brother went up at halftime to get everyone a hot chocolate and they told everyone they were out of hot water-- after they paid of course. So they led them on an adventure going from concession to concession to see if they had it. They ended up just pouring the chocolate powder in people's cups and telling them to go find water. I guess they didn't plan on people wanting a hot drink after sitting in the cold rain all day.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:17 AM ^
"They ended up just pouring the chocolate powder in people's cups and telling them to go find water. I guess they didn't plan on people wanting a hot drink after sitting in the cold rain all day."
It's amazing how a world-class university that constantly beats its chest about its brilliant people doing incredible, leading-edge research in medicine, engineering, and the natural sciences can't find people to competently manage food concessions and audio systems at a stadium.
The Michigan Difference®
October 18th, 2023 at 10:33 AM ^
they cant give you cold water when its hot and hot water when its cold. ive belabored this point for a long time, but 100% agree, how they don't have someone paying attention to the experience of the customer in this day and age baffles me.
The only thing i can think is that theyre getting their 110000 seats sold either way so who cares and Michigan takes forever to come up to the times on anything.
I'd rather them go overboard with improvements and then scale back because some failed, than just sit there twiddling their thumbs.
The scoreboard thing is kinda ridiculous... yes, they could be better, but even that seems clunky and poorly used.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:20 PM ^
I was at the Minnesota game with a professional concessionaire. The difference was staggering to me. We really suck at trying to do better and it is embarrassing. Mediocrity is still Mediocrity. Even Sparty does it much better. Ughhhhhh.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:25 PM ^
Co-sign on the complete mismanagement of stadium concessions. My 5 year old son and I have been to all 5 home games thus far this season. He has asked me to buy him popcorn during the 2nd quarter during all 5 games. I have left my seat, and the game, to go get him his popcorn during the 2nd quarter of all 5 games.
He has successfully gotten popcorn once.
October 18th, 2023 at 2:10 PM ^
Still anxiously awaiting the wifi system
October 18th, 2023 at 9:25 AM ^
Last game I thought it was fine and commented that I am glad the sound is not blaring like it used to be.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:50 AM ^
eventually
October 18th, 2023 at 10:13 AM ^
I was at the game last weekend, sitting in south endzone. Video and audio were out of sync, and I think by more than 0.3 sec. I thought the sound, itself, was fine.
October 18th, 2023 at 11:04 AM ^
I think it is a big problem too and it has not been fully addressed.
The timing of the construction was such that they did not have time to get enough practice time before the season. There's a reasonable argument that "7 weeks is a long time" but I don't think people appreciate how hard it is to get right. There are substantial differences operating a system like that with and without a crowd (and how the sound is impacted by how full the stadium is).
Some folks may remember that with the old system, one of the things that helped was when during a game (!) they had a crew come out with gear to evaluate the sound and were asking for the crowd to make and stop noise during the tests.
So it is not a bad take that maybe things should be better by now, but this is not as simple as just turning the volume up or down and calling it good.
Regardless, the main thing I want to comment on is Anthony Bellino, the guy who is also the PA announcer at Crisler for Basketball. I guess if you want to have races and "throw the ball in the can" events and whatever, there's an argument for an announcer. But I wholeheartedly echo the point that it ridiculous to have him telling us that it is time to look at the cheerleaders and follow the "GO" and "BLUE" signs. Similarly ridiculous is the choice to build the "Go Blue" cheer from the cheerleaders into the event schedule and make that a distinct (planned) event that is separate from the "LET'S GO BLUE" cheer from the cheerleaders. This should be organic, REALLY loud, and happen when the other team is on offense, not during a timeout. As it is, this all coincides with making the game more sterile and programmed.
IMHO, the student section needs to get much more formally organized, like the Children of Yost or the Maize Rage and work to have more of a timely impact on the game. For example, the wave should also be initiated when the defense is on the field (and ideally when we're up in the game).
October 18th, 2023 at 1:34 PM ^
Not sure if this is true, but a friend told me they only have sound out of one end zone because of a city noise ordinance that was put in place. Has anybody heard anything about that?
October 18th, 2023 at 3:45 PM ^
Since we're talking about Michigan Stadium and I know I would get negged if I created a new thread just for this:
The thing I wish would get fixed is the upper bowl in the student section that almost always looks half empty. The Indiana game was especially bad, I'm guessing due to the weather and the bad opponent. I remember back in the 90s, you could guarantee that all of Michigan Stadium would be completely full, regardless of the opponent... but that started changing sometime in the 2010's.... I've heard that it's due to the students pushing down and squeezing into the lower part of the bowl instead of saying in their assigned seat? And I guess students never did this back in the 90s? Forgive my ignorance on this issue, as I don't know how seating in the Big House works these days. Regardless, it just looks really bad on TV for the #2 team in CFB to see a huge part of the upper bowl always having empty seats.
Other CFB big time football programs don't seem to have this problem... just Michigan.
October 19th, 2023 at 11:53 AM ^
I was at the game. The weather wasn't great. And got even worse at half time.
October 18th, 2023 at 6:53 PM ^
Also Woodson’s video and audio were not synced.
October 18th, 2023 at 11:32 PM ^
An experienced sound engineer needs to come in the sound is terrible.