234. Jim van Bergen, Audio “Renaissance Man”

Audio “renaissance man” Jim van Bergen joins the show in Episode 234 to talk about his wide-ranging career, including his tenure mixing the Times Square New Year’s Eve broadcasts, serving as front of house engineer for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, recording singer-songwriter Shane MacGowan live, touring with the Metropolitan Opera, mixing the Beatles tribute Rain’s Broadway residency, and much more. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Episode Links:
Jim vanBergen On LinkedIn
JvB UnCorked (Jim’s Wine Blog)
Shane MacGowan’s Popes – Across the Broad Atlantic: Live on Paddy’s Day
Transcript

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Transcript

Transcript

Signal to Noise Episode 234 - Jim van Bergen

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Andy Leviss: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience.

RCF, who has just unveiled their new TT+ Audio brand, including the high performance GTX series line arrays and the GTS29 subwoofer. Be sure to check it out at rcf-usa.com. That's rcf-usa.com.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

Andy Leviss: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and with me in the virtual studio, as always, is my co-host, Sean Walker. What's up, Sean? 

Sean Walker: What's up, dude? What's up, y'all? How you guys doing? Happy New Year! 

Andy Leviss: Happy New Year to you too.  

Sean Walker: Did you guys go rage for New Year's? We had a pretty chill New Year's at home with the kids. We had a bonfire and then, you know, watched the ball drop and the fireworks at the Space Needle and called it. We're old at this point, I think. 

Andy Leviss: We were decidedly the youngest folks at the event we went to. 

Sean Walker: Nice

Andy Leviss: We found a little jazz bar here in Westchester that was actually a former studio, or I guess a current studio owner in the area, who decided he was tired of giving advice to friends on how to do a jazz club, so he was just going to open up his own. 

Sean Walker: Alright, fair enough. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and so we went there... 

Sean Walker: Way to put your money where your mouth is, buddy. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, wehad a pretty, pretty good time. Decent food, decent tunes, you know, something to do, easy ride home. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. 

Andy Leviss: So yeah, we hung out, did that. And then went out, went on a hike yesterday as, as, as you apparently do. Apparently that's a thing, like the First Hike--I didn't know, but, uh, yeah, apparently it's a thing. 

Sean Walker: Alright. We did the polar bear plunge. My wife and my nine year old daughter, Rowan, they went and jumped in the river and did their polar bear plunge and uh, yesterday and Rowan was like, I wanna go again! And we were like, no dude, you're nine, you're not jumping in the ice cold river again.  

Andy Leviss: So see, so I'm actually gonna pop over and let's, let's introduce our guest for this week, who is a very old friend of mine. And to clarify, we have been friends for a long time, he's not very old... 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, I am. 

Andy Leviss: Jim van Bergen and Jim, we were talking beforehand and I was introducing him to Sean and I, It's almost easier to list the things Jim hasn't done as opposed to the things Jim's done, 'cause he's done a whole lot of different things: tv, film at one point, Broadway, music. He's currently, uh, the House sound at one of the venues at Jazz at Lincoln Center here in New York. Uh, he's, uh, he works on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Uh, he had a tenure for many years, uh, working on the New Year's Eve broadcast from Times Square. Uh, there's some Blueman in his history, 

Jim van Bergen: There is, sadly. 

Andy Leviss: Welcome, Jim. How are you doing? 

Jim van Bergen: I'm great, how are you? 

Andy Leviss: Uh, not too bad. You know, thanks for, thanks for hopping in with us. It's you've been on my short list of friends I was going to sucker into joining us for a while, so I'm glad we can make 

Jim van Bergen: Well, consider me suckered. Happy to add a little bit of... 

Sean Walker: to Thunderdome. 

Jim van Bergen: Thank you. Here's the harmonic distortion to add into your day. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right. 

Andy Leviss: So it's always fun playing the game of, you know, we're doing an audio podcast, so what microphones do people show up with? Like I meant to mention it when we had TC Furlong on the other week. He had, I'm blanking on what they are, the little egg like EVs, the, the, the Tom mics. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, the ND627 or, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. There's a six in there somewhere. 

Yeah. I'm like, which was one of highlights, but Jim, is that you rocking a Neumann there? 

Jim van Bergen: uh, yeah, I'm rocking a TLM102, but I had to have a lot of choices, so the choices I had close by is, uh, I have, uh Uh, uh, what the hell is this...Telefunken M 80 that, that I brought to listen to. And I listened to that and was like, oh, it sounds, you know, kind of like, eh, the Riverside thing. Uh, I brought a little contact, uh, uh, plug-on element that's designed to go with an RTS key panel, you know, so McCurdy key panel microphone was like, well, there's the, the super cheap version of it. Uh, I brought in Earthworks lectern microphone, uh, and I brought 

Andy Leviss: Jim came prepared. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, I brought an old school, uh, Sennheiser ME80, uh, with the, with the KU, um, extension and this actually sounds really, really good, but I decided I wanted to have [leans into mic for deep Voiceover sound] the large diaphragm Neumann, 

Andy Leviss: There we go. 

Sean Walker: Size matters!

Andy Leviss: I gotta say, I've, I was, I was skeptical of the shotgun as like a Zoom or like podcasting mic and, and, uh, I, my partner, Kate, uh, has, that's been her mic of choice at home to kind of narrow out the room a bit. And it sounds pretty fantastic. 

Jim van Bergen: It's surprisingly good and you can, uh, you can put them outside of, you know, your video if you're doing the Zoom kind of call. So it's really convenient. 

Andy Leviss: But, but if you're doing that, you need a little like figurine of a guy in tight pink shorts and nothing else in the desert holding it over your head, right? 

Jim van Bergen: Having done that, I don't want to be the guy in the tight pink shorts. 

Andy Leviss: That's for those who don't know Google "Star Wars Boom Guy" later. It's, it's, it's an iconic image for those who are not familiar. 

Jim van Bergen: Oh, yeah. Well, they were shooting in Tunis, you know, or Tunisia, sorry, Tunisia. And, um, you know, it was very, very hot out there. So of course he's wearing, you know, like flip flops or sneakers and tight pink shorts and skinny boom arm, boom dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yep. 

Jim van Bergen: It's an image. You won't lose it. Once you've got it in your head, you won't lose it. 

Sean Walker: Think I'm going to skip that particular web search and just, you know, take your word for it. 

Jim van Bergen: I mean, 

Andy Leviss: I was going to go as that for Halloween with the way global warming's going lately. 

Jim van Bergen: That sounds fascinating. 

Andy Leviss: Unfortunately, Jim's now gotta drink because he just pictured that in his head. 

Jim van Bergen: That's right. As you can see, I'm, I'm drinking a bourbon with one cube. 

Andy Leviss: All right.  

Jim van Bergen: The listeners on the podcast, you'll have to miss the, uh, the verbal joke or the visual jokes. Sorry. 

Andy Leviss: It's more fun in their minds. Uh, so, Jim, why don't you give us a little bit of the, give us a little bit of the JVB origin story. Because like I said, you've done a whole lot of stuff, uh, where did you start? 

Jim van Bergen: So, uh, classically trained as a musician and an actor as a performer and was doing that was being paid, um, you know, through as a, as a kid, I would, you know, as my first commercial when I was like three. Um, was a singer and, you know, did a lot of musical theater, played in a bunch of bands, uh, through college, was making my living, was being paid as an actor and being paid as a musician. 

I kind of had an aha moment, um, in the middle of a band rehearsal with one of my rock bands and was like, if I don't really want to be here, should I be doing this for a living? It's kind of like, I really don't want to be in rehearsal, so maybe it's time to listen to the world. And, uh, you know, it was this point where, um I thought maybe I'd change directions and get out of a performance part and try to see what it was like to actually study sound design. 

And so I went up to New Haven and spent some time with David Budries, uh, at the, uh, school that shall not be named, the Yale School of Drama, um, which is now the David Geffen School of Drama. Um, and, uh, you know, went to school with people like, uh, John Huntington and, uh, Jamie Anderson and some other folks who are, you know, good friends, uh, and studied and learned a lot, and...learned a lot more than I thought, and then came to New York and, uh, jumped in with both feet. 

I started writing for TheaterCrafts and Lighting Dimensions magazines while I was starving as a sound designer and breaking into the, to the industry here. Um, working in the publishing game, uh, there's no money in it, but it's good contacts, and I started meeting a lot of folks, and at the same time I was doing that, since I had my own DAT recorder, my own microphones, um, I started working in, uh, cheap film production. 

And started doing a lot of film work and was doing some television work before I was able to break into, uh, off-Broadway and eventually into Broadway. So, that was one realm. Um, I started working with Concert Sound Consultants and did three years touring with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic and the Carlos Mosley Sound Pavilion, which is a really fascinating sound system, uh, doing the summer parks tours. 

Um, after that, uh, took a job designing with the Big Apple Circus and Blue Man Group and spent several years focusing on, you know, the design career. I was a resident sound designer at Primary Stages, and, oh, there's another theater company that's on 42nd Street, uh, Signature Theater Company. I was resident for them for several years. 

At the same time, I designed, like, uh, seven or eight seasons with Big Apple Circus, and at the same time I was doing Blue Man Group, um, they had already been designed, uh, they had shows in New York and Boston and I designed the Chicago production and oversaw the three North American productions at that point before they kind of exploded. Um, it was fascinating, you know, uh, did a lot of Broadway work. 

When my first daughter was born, I started mixing more Broadway because I was just looking to get benefits, health benefits through the union. So I did a little more behind the console work instead of, you know, more design work. Um, and at that point, Chris Cronin, who's a buddy of mine who works at Sound Associates and he's a freelance sound designer, uh, and engineer, we were both looking to do a little more music. 

Uh, and so we bought a remote recording truck from a friend of ours and we spent like four or five years doing a crap ton of video and remote work--multitrack recording in the early days of digital. 

Andy Leviss: Oh, that's wild, I remember you having the truck, but I didn't realize that Chris was the other partner in that. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah. Yeah. So it was, uh, it was Cronin and me and we did some spectacular stuff. Uh, we did at least three seasons of, uh, HBO's Reverb. Did a ton of stuff for, uh, you know, ABC and MTV and a bunch of live albums. Uh, actually Shane McGowan just passed, and probably one of my favorite things is we recorded, uh, Across the Broad Atlantic, which was his, uh, Shane McGowan and the Pope's, uh, double live album, uh, which was two different performances, one on that side of the Atlantic and one on this side of the Atlantic on St. Paddy's Day, because that year they'd had a breakout of, uh, foot and mouth, hoof and mouth disease or whatever it is, um, in the UK. And so they recorded, uh, on St. Patrick's Day and two different, two different days and made a double album out of it. And that's one of my most favorite album credits. 

Sean Walker: Do you remember recording on St. Patrick's Day or was the Jameson just, you know, keeping everybody well lubed? 

Jim van Bergen: Oh, I remember it very, very well because it is a story and a half. 

Andy Leviss: Go on. 

Sean Walker: Alright, hit me...I like, I like stories, because no good story ever started with "the salad was crisp". So, St. Paddy's Day is, that's right up my alley of a good story. 

Jim van Bergen: There you go. So, all right. So, and I had, I had done a bunch of, you know, crazy broadcasts, some really insane broadcasts and had some stupid stories from that and had done a lot of rock and roll and had some crazy stories from that, but this one kind of took the cake. 

Uh, you know, we went into the setup that we were shooting at Webster Hall. And, you know, it was totally a sold out show, St. Patrick's Day, a little crazy outside, everyone was very happy because the weather was starting to get nice. Executive producer was panicking because Shane had been in country, but nobody had seen him. 

Like Shane's here, trying to find out where he is, trying to find out where he is. Finally, he gets a phone call. This is kind of early in the days of our cell phones, right? We had cell phones, they were expensive. You know, he had a UK cell phone. He was really complaining every time that he answered it, 'cause he's like, "this is costing me pound after pound after pound." But finally found out where Shane was. He'd been drinking for three days straight with a mate that he'd seen when he got off the plane at JFK and had not stopped. So I was like, okay, that's the problem with New York city is they don't ever shut the bars down. 

Sean Walker: Is it though? Is it really a problem? 

Jim van Bergen: Well, here's the thing. A limo finally pulls up and a bunch of security guys go out there and they pull this guy out and they carry him on their shoulders like he's a dead body into the building and up the stairs. 

Sean Walker: [laughs] Oh, no!

Jim van Bergen: And I was like, I was like, that's Shane? And he's like, We're like, he's pissed drunk. 

I'm like, okay, great. So they're gonna shovel some coffee in them. They're gonna get them in the shower. They're gonna get them out there. So, you know, about an hour later, you know, we'd done a line check, keeping our fingers crossed, band starts to play, somebody pushes Shane out towards the microphone, you know, uh, they roll into, um, oh God, I'm trying to remember what the song was. 

I want to say Grace of God. Um, and Shane sidles up to the microphone and starts spewing into it, and I mean--you know, spewing words, not vomit. Um, but I was like, is he singing in Gaelic? Because I can't understand a thing he's saying. And the producer goes, nah man, he's fucking pissed. 

Sean Walker: [laughs]

Jim van Bergen: It's like, he is so drunk, you cannot understand a syllable he is slurring. Uh, but it was an iconic performance. It was a spectacular show. The audience was on fire. He was in surprisingly okay shape for an absolute shit-faced person. Um, and I, I didn't think that it was going to be spectacular. I was like, this, this is never going to make it to air. And it sure as hell did. It made it to a double album that sold very, very well. 

Uh, it was crazy, crazy performance. 

Sean Walker: Dude, how awesome!

Jim van Bergen: And, uh, you know, yeah, I go back and listen to it from time to time. And I have a bunch of friends who are like, oh my God, I love that piece. I love that album. It's, you know, something I'm really, really proud of. I go back and listen to it and I'm like, well, it's all there. 

You know, uh, it's, it, everything's right there. It's, it's spectacular. It's a really fun, uh, version of Fairytale of New York, you know, Shane's going, Oh, it's Rachel! And I'm like, Oh God, please don't vomit on her, you know, it's like, Rachel! And uh, you know, we're, we're looking at him, we had a spy camera, you know, um, we're looking at the guy and like, he had like three teeth left in his head, you know, from the years of alcohol and drugs. 

God bless him, you know, tortured soul, you know, a brilliant, prolific sound, uh, songwriter. What a crazy guy, you know, but that was a really spectacular show to do. 

Sean Walker: Dude, I bet. How cool. 

Jim van Bergen: Done some, done some wild stuff, you know, that was one of them. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: So, you, you mentioned that Sound Pavilion and, and teased that that was like kind of a wild sound system, so I'm curious to hear more about that. 

Jim van Bergen: The Carlos Moseley Sound Pavilion. So it was designed to take the, uh, acoustic experience of being in the Metropolitan Opera House to outdoors and to do that for over a hundred thousand people. And so it was a series of deployed, uh, sound towers, they'd be taken out, you know, by a forklift and placed, and that was done very, uh, very diligently by a team of sound folks. 

We had, um, surveying equipment, you know, so we would shoot lasers out and, and do exact measurements to where the towers would go. So you'd be bringing the main stage, it was a seven truck setup, uh, for the main stage for the, for the MET and the Philharmonic. not a huge front mains hang, a very small main hang, because most of what was coming off the stage, you know, was direct from the orchestra. 

And then most of what was coming out for the reinforced part was coming out of the Carlos Mozart sound pavilion, which are these deployed speaker towers, which were front, side, rear and bottom firing. So they had a subwoofer built into them. They, you know, they had the ability to give you early reflections in addition to a direct sound. 

So it was really fascinating. project. It was a lot of fun to set up, took considerable time, very different than doing a normal outside gig, you know, not like going in and setting up a rig and going, here's my line array, you know, left, center, right, subs, maybe delays, done. It's like, this is all delays and it's very, very delicate. 

It has to be, you know, timed very specifically. The placement of each tower was really particular, so it took hours to do. Um, but it was amazing and we'd had up to a million people, uh, with that sound system and it was spectacular stuff and, you know, toured it all around the tri state area, uh, from New Jersey to Long Island to, to Pennsylvania and did that for several different years and learned a lot, met a lot of people, had a spectacular time. 

It was 

Sean Walker: million people. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, outdoors. 

Sean Walker: What is the energy like at a event with a million people attending? Is that 

Jim van Bergen: I mean, no, because it's classical music. So it was very chill, like classical music, very chill. Now, I've done a million people live in a much worse situation where I was in the remote truck in the center of Times Square, you know, 1998 into 1999, you know, 2. 5 million people surrounding. Times Square and more people in the millennium, you know, crazy energy. 

And that is a very frightening energy because it's a lot of youngsters. It's a lot of drunk people. It's a lot of party goers and they're just there to have a great time. They want 

Sean Walker: Hey, hey, hey, I'm sitting right here, man. I said, I was sorry. It was one time I knocked into the truck. I said, sorry. 

Jim van Bergen: I have no problem with most drunk people. I have, I have lots and lots of interesting stories about, uh, shows where 

Sean Walker: mean, you're in the music business. Of course you don't. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, exactly. You know, I was mixing, uh, oh my god, years and years ago. So this is around that same time period, but I was mixing, uh, Britney Spears at The World, which used to be the Paramount Theater, right? 

And now it's the Hard Rock Cafe. Um, but she was doing a special, like, you know, New Year's Eve event. Uh, and you know, on the stage, there's like 1500 people in the audience, you know, it's chock full and people start throwing champagne bottles, you know, and I remember like ducking under a piece of visqueen trying to cover up the Harrier Street 1000 console going, please do not pour the champagne on the mixing console. 

Please do not hit the sound engineer with champagne bottle. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. Oh my gosh. 

Jim van Bergen: So, you know, people have a good time. People have too much of a good time sometimes. 

Sean Walker: enough. 

Jim van Bergen: Uh, I was doing a TV broadcast, uh, for the, uh, the Giants Ticker Tape Parade and we're in a mobile unit down near the Canyon of Heroes, right? Um Giants are coming through and the fans are so excited and have spent a long time pre gaming and they're, you know, hopping up on the outside of the mobile vehicle, trying to get a better view of the football players. 

Right. And the van, you know, the TV truck is rocking back and forth and we're going, Oh my God, you know, going to have problems here. You know, we have to start having interference, you know, with the satellite and some of 

Sean Walker: no, 

Jim van Bergen: cameras and RF microphones. Yeah. I mean, you know, sometimes crowds can be your worst enemy, so good times. 

Sean Walker: Right. Totally. 

Jim van Bergen: I got an Emmy nomination for that, but it wasn't one of my wins. 

Andy Leviss: Oh, 

Sean Walker: Hey, man, even the nomination is better than nothing. 

Jim van Bergen: It's true. Actually, so, uh, having talked about that kind of insanity, when we did the, uh, ticker tape parade for the women's soccer team, we did it remotely. And that's one of the things I did get an Emmy award for was because we did everything wirelessly. I actually was in a truck and we, we mixed and broadcast it in southern Jersey while the parade happened in the southern tip of Manhattan, right? 

And everything was microwaved over. And so technically it was spectacular. So it was, you know, it was a really unusual thing to do and to have all those elements. Yeah. It was, was very, very cool. And I'm, I'm actually really, really proud of that. And I have my little gold statue for it. Yay. 

Sean Walker: Nice. Good work. 

Jim van Bergen: It's funny. Cause I'm, I'm really proud of, uh, of my few awards, but I'm married to a director producer and she has like 25. And so there's a, there's an awards cabinet and it's chock full of her awards. And I have a couple way in the back and I want to keep it working. You know? 

Andy Leviss: See, I know mine are the top shelf ones, so we tuck them away. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Totally. That's funny. All right. So for, since I'm not in broadcast and stuff, how do you technically set up a truck in New Jersey and do something that's in Manhattan? How do you, how does that work to do it all wirelessly? 

Jim van Bergen: well, you have a lot of very high powered, uh, satellite dishes that are involved, and you do embedding of audio, so you have to spend time QCing your microphones to match gain to the picture, finish location. So, however, we'd set up a camera, you know, there's a lot of advanced time on this, right, so we know weeks in advance that we're going to do it. 

So we start, you know, going and spotting locations during the parade route. Where can we put a camera that will be isolated, that will be protected, that won't be problematic, where we can capture a good shot, you know, of the parade moving and of audience. And so where we put those cameras and try to figure out where to put microphones on. 

If there's a mobile, um, if there's a mobile camera, you know, I put a microphone attached to it, and I hope I will get more audience response or ambient noise than I will cameraman responding or whatever the sound of the vehicle is that it's on, right? Um, like a couple of years ago when we had Pope Francis coming through, uh, the microphones I had on the mobile cameras was just, you know, vehicle noise was bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, and then the sounds of the sirens, you know, they were accompanying, you know, the Pope as he's going through, so. 

Not any usable audio with, with Pope Frank on that part of the trip, but you know, with the, with the, with the Canyon Pretty Heroes and the women's soccer team, uh, you know, placed a lot of microphones, did a lot of heavy shock mounting. You know, if I had to gaff tape a mount into place, you know, shock mount. 

You know, rubber mat, whatever I can try and get it, you know, sometimes on the stop sign or next to a, you know, a big, uh, stoplight or whatever you can, you know, clamp something onto it, you know, Manfrotto, uh, arm is your best friend on the side of a building or something, or even on a tripod, uh, or set of legs if you have no choice and get a decent image of, you know, how the parade's going to move, right? 

Trying to get, uh, a good stereo image, but ultimately, at the end of the day, I want signal. You know, uh, more signal than noise to be able to help translate that information. And the good part of it is, is like doing news and like, uh, the broadcast events for so many years for 9 11, is there's often, uh, play by player color commentary on top of it. 

So you want to make sure you have everything you can tell the story, but you also know there's going to be something else going on, so you might be able to cover up a few of the mishaps, mishmash, noise that goes along the way. Trying to get a really good, clean capture wherever possible. So you'll learn that when you're doing the rest of it, you know, and the same, that's one of the things I really learned great when I was doing film is trying to capture everything that's happening, you know, um, bypassing where, where the noise is, you know, the generators and, you know, the rest of the crew, the sounds of the dolly and how do you get, you know, really good, uh, contact for, you know, what's happening with your actors, the ambience of what's happening in the environment, you know, get all your, get all your, your sound elements. 

Uh, and your room tone and everything else you need to try and make sure you have elements to be able to put it together later in post. Um, it was really, really helpful when I started to mix television broadcasts live because I was spending a lot of time going. You know, what is the story we're trying to tell? 

How do I make this happen? And it's, you know, similar to what you do in sports. You're always trying to make sure you have plenty of the effects tracks and the ambient tracks, whatever you have, all those different things, and your color and play by play are sitting on top of that, but you have to be able to tell the story. 

So if you're telling a theatrical story, television broadcast, something else, you know, or a live broadcast event, you You know, all those elements are important. You want to make sure you're able to tell the story, but have to have all those elements and go, where do they go? How do I utilize them? Where will I pull them in or put them out? 

You know, and how do you make that work? And you hope that all the choices that you make and the planning you do in advance is good. So because you usually don't have a chance to fix it in post, you know, it's like you get one shot when it's live. 

Sean Walker: Dude, cool. 

Jim van Bergen: It can be, you know, I mean, I learned a lot about, you know, the stuff I was doing when I was doing film in the early days. And a lot of the world of audio that was pre digital. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. So you mentioned briefly like Times Square News even like, cause how long did you do that? And you were doing the, is it, is it the pool feed you were doing? 

Jim van Bergen: Yes, I did the broadcast pool feed for 10 years, and 

Andy Leviss: we should explain to folks what that is. 

Jim van Bergen: So that is basically one TV truck and one big ass TV team, uh, does 20 some odd cameras that go throughout the course of Times Square, and that pool is paid for by, uh, the Times Square, uh, Business Improvement District, Times Square bid, and that feed is given either in single cameras or as a cut feed, uh, to both the live screens locally and to every network that's that comes in and is part of that event. 

Any other, uh, company who's there, a TV, uh, network or, you know, a channel that's there, they were allowed to have a single camera or if they, you know, had a big stage, they could have the stages that the cameras they needed locally, but they're not coming in each like ABC, NBC. CBS, MTV, they're not all coming in with 20 and 30 cameras. 

The Pool Feet is doing 20 cameras and they're doing all the wide sweeping shots, all the jib shots, all the stuff that's happening down at the main stage, you know, where the mayor or whomever the guest is pushes the button, watches the ball come down. That's all Pool Feet cameras. And if you have, you know, somebody doing their standup from a particular network, that's on that network's local camera. 

So they're taking their stuff, which is Things that are happening in their building, maybe their outside single camera, plus the pool feed. So the pool feed is feeding the entire world. And that was really cool, like 1994, Started to get to the millennium, started to get crazy. So 98 and 99 was a nutty, nutty year. 

The year of the millennium was absolutely insane. And then it chilled out a little bit after that, and I did it up until 2005. And then we were like, I think we're done with this, have done it enough, did the important years, ready to kind of move on with our lives. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. 'cause I, I remember 'cause I did 2000 to 2001 with you and, and that was, that was relatively chill. We were pleasantly sur and, and relatively warm too. I remember 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, yeah, but we'd had some tough years prior to that, you know, um, you know, David Chessman, I don't know if he's ever been a guest on your show, but, you know, David's a spectacular, uh, tech and sound guy, and he was with me since the, the very beginning, I think, on a bunch of those shows, and we had some fabulously terrifying days. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. I, I think that was actually the day I met, the day I de ma the day I de Maeve chess. Wow. The day I met Dave Chessman was, was doing that New Year's Eve with you, I think. 

Jim van Bergen: Are you changing from bourbon to rye? What just happened 

Andy Leviss: I, that's the coffee is wearing off and I haven't gone down and topped off the, it's I don't have my traditional podcast whiskey today because it was a little earlier than we usually record. So 

Sean Walker: I knew there was something off about you, Andy. 

Andy Leviss: yeah. 

Jim van Bergen: for more, more coffee or more coffee 

Andy Leviss: Right. I mean, there's always got to be at least one blooper in an episode, although somehow I always managed to do it right out of the gate. 

Jim van Bergen: Damn, it's gonna 

Sean Walker: I am an entire episodes of blooper every time. What do you mean? You're, you're the talent. I'm the ding dong. Let's rock, dude. What do you mean? 

Jim van Bergen: If you're the ding dong, who's the ho ho? I'll be the twinkie. 

Sean Walker: I don't know. 

Jim van Bergen: Okay. Yeah, man. 

Andy Leviss: so on the New Year's, am I allowed to ask about, about Auld Lang Syne and your connection to that? Or is that something we can't talk about? 

Jim van Bergen: No, you can talk about it. I mean, somebody might get a bill. Sure, go ahead. 

Andy Leviss: I just, cause that's one of my favorite little bits of trivia. 

Jim van Bergen: which, which bits of trivia, like the playback that we used for so many years? I 

Andy Leviss: Yep. Yeah. That one. 

Jim van Bergen: mean, I put together a playlist, um, uh, man, uh, the music that, that you heard on broadcast was not actually supposed to be direct to air. 

Um, you know, it's a 24 channel surround system that, uh, Maryland Sound System, uh, Maryland Sound put out in the square. And John Kilgore is the original sound designer of the effects package that did the countdown. But I did all the other elements that went around with that, musical, uh, elements that came in and went out. 

And then at some point, John did not have an agreement with, with, uh, New Year's Eve and Times Square bid and I took over the sound design and redesigned the surround package that went around for the sound effects and, uh And the musical package and the whole goal with that was like the wishes could all go direct, uh, to air, but the music packages, because it was all, you know, it's, it's not licensed. 

So it was only allowed to be picked up ambiently, right? Wasn't going direct on the broadcast, but there are so many open microphones out there in the square. You could not miss it to save your life, right? So the music was out there and it's very particular playlist and 14, 15, 16 years straight. You know, I kept on hearing that package go straight through. 

Um, at 2004, 2005, my last year, uh, I sold, uh, the effects and music package, uh, to the client, you know, the, uh, who, who operates, uh, One Time Square, right? Uh, what are they called? It's Countdown Entertainment. It's the company Countdown Entertainment. I sold that, sold that package, um, the surround mix and all those elements, uh, to Countdown Entertainment. 

And then for years, I've just been watching that happen. And I didn't watch this year. Uh, the TV was on in the background and I was at a nice party. We're having a great time drinking some, some champagne and, and catching up with friends. So I didn't hear what was going on in the background, but it's probably something else now, but for years and years, that same package played, uh, the same, you know, whooshes and sound effects package, which is really spectacular. 

And you hear it in the square going around you. Uh, then it folds down to either stereo or mono for the TV folks at home. Uh, and then you hear the music package. But it was never supposed to be played directly because of licensing. So, you know, but that was, you know, old Lang, old Langsign and, you know, New York, New York. 

And then, you know, so, so it's a very specific, you know, playback package. And it was very, very carefully designed for three years leading up to the millennium and then kind of the post millennium, uh, music package. But, you know, all New York based, uh, style and music or stuff. That's all about, you know, that time of year and the package and the, you know, where we are and what it is. 

So it's, you know, kind of the whole New York, New York hour. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I was going to say, because the, because the version that lived in my memory, which may be like 20 years of memory telephone gaming after, was that like, there's like, because the, the white noise of the crowd is so much that you can't hear it, and I thought I remembered you building like, basically like a fake sequence of that, uh, am I, am I misremembering, or? 

Jim van Bergen: No, you're not inaccurate. I just wasn't ever going to share that information with most people. So that's okay. 

Andy Leviss: can edit that out if you need. 

Jim van Bergen: No, it's okay. Secrets. Uh, it's, you know, business, business trade secrets, things you can do that are important to know is, you know, how much of it is live and how much of it's memorex that, you know, you are, you are still telling a story. 

And sometimes the audience is a part of that. Um, you know, there are, there were human elements built into the sound effects package and the music package, and there are. Uh, sound effects elements built into the live package. Is that fair to say? 

Andy Leviss: All right. Yeah, that tracks. And that's, and I think we were even, we touched on some stuff like that a little bit last week in the, in the live episode we did of, uh, yeah, like different ways to like goose a crowd and, and make the experience more, I'm gesturing with my hands cause I don't have words, but folks at home can use their imagination. Um, yeah, but that's, that's cool. Um, and then now like the, the other big, like similar event that you still work on these days is the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. What's your role in that? 

Jim van Bergen: Uh, I am the live sound PA guy on 34th Street. So, because of my television background, uh, mixing background, um, Ed Green was the production mixer on that show for many, many years until his passing. Uh, Ed, here's to you in the sky, buddy. Um, Ed had been one of my mentors in broadcast television mixing in the early 90s. Uh, as, in addition to being a good friend, but when they decided to make a change, uh, with the person who was responsible on 34th Street, I was the person that Ed, NBC, and Clair Brothers, who was the PA company at that point, had in common. Uh, Ed wanted me to be the person on the street because he's like, I know JVB will, uh, make sure that all the things that happen need to happen and the mix will not be, uh, uh, Disturbed. 

Uh, the point of that being is that job is to mix the live event for the crowd, which are all VIPs for Macy's and NBC, right? So top, top brass and a few special guests, but there's a lot of major, you know, big, big TV stars, uh, well known faces, and then top executives for Macy's and NBC. Very important people. 

You're also mixing monitors for all the talent that's coming across 34th Street. So anybody who's singing, whether it's live or Memorex, uh, they're all getting their, their mix from me. Anybody who's getting ears is getting it from me. Anybody who's listening to it through a speaker, um, you know, one of the many, many line arrays I have is coming from me. 

Or if somebody decides they want to plop down in the center of the square on the logo and get a pair of wedges, you know, I'm mixing the wedges and the wedges come out to them. Uh, so, in addition to that, whatever I'm doing is going to affect the live air mix because there's so many ambient mics there. 

So, the biggest part of my job, in addition to making sure the audience hears what they need, the talent hears what they need, uh, you know, and everything's moving back and forth, is to not mess up the broadcast mix with the PA. Right? Monitors can't ruin the rest of the show. So, I'm spending a lot of time as a broadcast mixer, listening to my mix and going, Am I going to affect what's happening? 

And then listening back and going, What's happening? Um, the word that you were looking for when you were making those gestures a few minutes ago was sweetening. And when you have a show like that, some networks might actually have a sweetening person who has the ability to add in, like, for example, when you see some sports shows, like ones where they have big rings and guys fight each other or people fight each other in the ring, and they might be more theatrical or scripted events. 

You know what sport I'm talking about, right? When that makes it to air, you'll have sweetening on it, right? There will definitely be additional crowd noises that are put in in post. All right, so when that makes it to the other sweetening shows that are live like the NBC parade might have a sweetening mixer on, you know, so you need to have the ability to add those, uh, audience responses in places where it's necessary. 

I hope I'm not, uh, going to get fired next year. What happens? Who's listening to this from NBC and Macy's? Anyhow, uh, A, there's no surprise, right? The guys in the truck are doing a sweetening mix. So there's a separate B unit that has a music package, playback package, you know, some other elements happening. 

So it's a very, very big sound team. Currently, the current mixer on that show, I should say, Jorge is a very good friend of mine. It's a sweetheart of a guy. He's a very talented mixer. It's a huge number of elements that are going down, uh, live for television with that. And the lead, uh, audio A1, and the designer, the guy who puts all of it together, Chris Acker, uh, from NBC, he is spectacular. 

He spends most of his year doing sports, a lot of, uh, a lot of crazy setups that are technically insane, uh, for things like golf all around the world. But this is a monster, monster show, because it's hooking up, hooking up, uh, you know, elements along the route. And, uh, NBC's home base at, uh, you know, 30 Rock, tying everything back and forth. 

And then, you know, it's multiple birds, uh, all kinds of fiber lines back and forth, you know, and there's Live commentators, there's live VO's from different locations, there's so much stuff that's coming in and going out and it's not, you know, it's not just local to what's happening there in the square and the truck compound on 34th Street. 

So, uh, Chris Hacker's put together a spectacular system and there's days and days of faxing to make sure those lines are working. And he's made it a very, very good turnkey system for what that show is. It's, it's insanely big. My part of it is really large, but it's small and easy and compared to what the rest of broadcast is doing. 

But the biggest part of what I'm doing is trying to make sure I have all my elements. And I work well with the live team and with the broadcast team to try and make sure that we're not messing up any of the part of the air mix. But you know, it's, it's a cool gig to have, you know, and I get to see all the talent, you know, a lot of the folks I work with, all the Broadway shows, I get to see a lot of friends there. 

A lot of the musical artists have worked before. So, you know, come down like, Hey, I'm doing your air mix or I'm doing your wedges. Nice to see you again. This is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to be experiencing. You know, it's freezing cold. Feel the wind. This is what it's going to be like. 

You know, it's going to be chilly. It's going to be windy. You know, if you really, really want to sing live, let's make sure you can hear everything you need to hear. If you're going to be outside for an hour and not be able to warm up, you know. Maybe, maybe the best idea is if you want it to sound like the record, just let it sound like the record. 

You know, that is a, uh, a significant thing that a lot of people in the industry talk about, uh, for that show. But honestly, you know, it's, uh, it's not an outdoor live performance show on a stage where people can be warmed up and ready to go. It's a show where people are outside for hours on, on end, and you are in the worst of the weather. 

It's not, you know, you're not protected. The talent is not protected there at all. So it's not like doing an outdoor show at Red Rocks. You know, this is the worst of the situation. So it's, it's a very harsh environment. And when people decide they really want to sing live, you know, God bless them, uh, it's a tough thing to do. 

It's hard to pull off. Some people do, do it phenomenally well, uh, but it's really hard to accomplish. And so I recommend that, you know, to most of the talent that come through, we, we suggest that they don't do it, honestly. I know you're not asking that question, but that's probably the biggest question people have, especially in our industry. 

So the folks who are listening at home going, do they really sing live? Well, most of them don't. You know, a few of them do and God bless them. But, uh, anybody who tries to do that, it's really hard to do, especially if you're riding a float 25 or 30 feet in the air, going back and forth, trying to hit your mark, you know, trying to pay attention to where you are, listening to your click, know where you're going, you know, and then look good on television for the 30 seconds to three minutes that you're going to get of airtime, you know, after having been freezing outside, uh, trying to look good for TV for an hour before you get a chance to open your mouth. 

It's tough. It's hard to pull off. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. 

Jim van Bergen: And it's a, you know, it's a monster audience too, you know, you got 60 million people in the U. S. alone who are watching that, you know, while they're making their turkeys. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And that's like a super interesting point to like, to call up. Cause it's, when you watch these broadcasts and you watch, particularly in the age of Facebook, people watching, there's always so much like armchair directing armchair mixing of like, why isn't it live? It's so horribly lip synced. Why, you know, why are they so lazy? 

And it's like, they're not lazy. They're freezing fucking cold. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, well, I'd be saying, you know, if you really don't believe why we do what we do, come on down, you know, come on and hang out with me a day before the broadcast and come have a look. 

Andy Leviss: It's, 

Sean Walker: A date? No, man, make them push cases. They want to come down and see what's up? Make them go do the load in and the shot prep and the, like, looming and all that crap, and then make them push cases and freeze balls for two weeks on that load in or whatever you said it was. And then they can see the show, 

Jim van Bergen: Well, 

Andy Leviss: how Jim and I became 

Jim van Bergen: that there's Exactly. There you go. You bring your, your, your closest friends in and make them do the absolute worst possible jobs because you want the best people in the world doing it. So, that's, yeah, so it's tough. We've had a lot of guests come in and come see it and they're always shocked and amazed to see how big the setup actually is. 

You know, how huge the, the, the stage, the platform is that we use for cameras and broadcasts and, you know, how large the The tent is that gets used because of the number of wireless cameras, the rail cameras, you know, all the extra video that's there, all the lighting that's up there, you know, the rail cameras is doing 120 feet, you know. 

Zooming back and forth, uh, to be able to get, you know, those hundred some odd Rockettes, you know, and that kickline, it looks spectacular. You know, the huge overhead jib shots looking down, you know, from five floors up, you know, to get that entire overhead shot and some spectacular stuff that's going on. 

It's amazing television, some really cool, cool stuff. You know, but we We get a good bit of rehearsal for what it is, but not nearly enough rehearsal for what we have to do. And my God, let me tell you, I feel bad for those kids who are in the marching bands. They'll come out and do rehearsal with us at two o'clock in the morning, you know, running back and forth to hit their marks, you know, trying to keep their instruments warm, blowing hard, just try and get, you know, three or four or five minutes on air. 

And then they go and they march the entire parade and they've done that for hours and their feet are killing them. They've been holding their horn the whole time. And then you're on, you know, boom, you got to be spectacular for those last three minutes. It's, it's, uh, 

Sean Walker: an intense run. 

Jim van Bergen: but oh yeah, they do a great job, you know. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. How cool, man. 

Jim van Bergen: Uh, it's, it's super, super fun. Um, you know, and it's a, it's a very unusual gig. It's a lot of fun to do, but, uh, yeah, those, those parades and those shows are, are very, very cool. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And it's like, just like one, one last point I wanted to like flag again for listeners at home, as we were talking about the sweetening on both that and like New Year's is it's easy to like sit there after the fact and be like, Oh, they're cheating. They're faking it all. But it's like. But the job isn't always to present exactly what's there, because exactly what's there might sound like trash sometimes. 

The job is to recreate the experience of being there. And those are very different 

Sean Walker: It's the entertainment business. It's supposed to be entertaining. Ready? Go entertain people. You know what I mean? 

Jim van Bergen: Other thing is that every time I do, you know, a new show, like it's the Today Show, you know, or ABC, any one of those shows where you have a musical artist come out and they're performing for a crowd, you know, to try and help sell their product. How much of that do you really think is a live performance? 

You know, we want it to sound like the record. How often is that actually going to be a live performance? Well, Sean's pretty close with that great big zero he's holding up in his hand, but a lot of times they'll sing live to track, you know, sometimes, you know, but most of the time I would recommend, hey, look, you know, if you really want it to sound like the record, you should use the record. 

If you want it to sound like the recording, if that's what you're selling, you're selling the recording, you know, I gotta sell you, you know, when we go to a lot of the live shows, how much of those shows are track? A lot of the shows we hear are, you know, are track. So much of it is really well produced. 

Some of it is just put together. And let's not talk about the artists who use a ton of autotune. I mean, you know, we all know there's a ton of artists who are using autotune, you know, all the time, you know. What? Crazy! How insane, right? I mean, I love it when you, when you do a rapper and the biggest part of his entourage is the guy whose job is to, to do the autotune, you know. 

You go and you look at his rundown sheet and it's like, hey, are these the songs we're gonna do? He goes, yep, we're gonna do this, this, this, and this. Like, do you have your settings? Yep, I have my setting for this song, my setting for this song, my setting for this song, my setting for this song. It's all about trying to keep them in the pocket. 

Trying to protect the integrity of the client and keep them where they're supposed to be. But you know, so when, when they're trying to sell that on morning TV, you know, sometimes they play live live. Sometimes is that the best choice? Sometimes it's not. Sometimes the best choice is live and that's awesome. 

But sometimes they just want to sell the record and in that case, a lot of times they'll just play. And, you know, and the singer will sync back to it, you know, uh, and, and I can't blame them at all, especially when you're doing this at four o'clock, five o'clock in the morning, trying to do a 7am radio hit or a 7am TV hit, you know, it's not easy to do. 

Sean Walker: totally. And it depends on what they're selling, right? Like if, if what they're selling is not like authentic singer, songwriter stuff, it's not maybe a big deal to be playing to the track. You know what I mean? If it's just a, you know, like, Record or something. It's not like most of that's tracks anyway, when it was made, you know, if it's like a, you know, super authentic singer, songwriter thing, maybe it's maybe, maybe it makes more sense to play it live, you know, 

Jim van Bergen: sometimes it does, you know, but that's the thing is it, it really depends on the moment. So you kind of want to be flexible with it. 

Sean Walker: totally, 

Jim van Bergen: to know that, you know, it's not cheating if you decide to give them the album version. You know, I mean, you know, one of the albums I grew up with that I love so much, Dark Side of the Moon, man, that is totally studio, you know, it's not about the live performance. 

It's all about, you know, what happens if you take those ends. When I had a professor who was like, hey, take this part, take this part, sync it together, double it over, spice it. This is actually a cut between the very end of the, end of the album and the beginning of the album. Like mind blowing, you know, what the Beatles were doing, you know, with, with, uh, separating some of the stuff they were doing in the studio, you know, was very, very different than anybody had done before. 

You know, you listen to the experimentation in early days of stereo and you're like, crap, you know, uh, Beach Boys, nothing like what was happening in the studio, you know, it's a, it's a ton of stuff that happens. It's, you know, that's the magic of the recording studio. 

Sean Walker: Absolutely. 

Andy Leviss: So speaking of the Beatles and of taking recordings that people know well and bringing them back around live, I'm going to try and make a segue here and let's talk about you. You mixed Rain on Broadway for Abe 

Jim van Bergen: Oh man, yeah, I did. Oh, 

Andy Leviss: What was that like? Because I, I, I unfortunately didn't get, didn't get a chance to make it to see it. 

The one time I had tickets, I had to give them up. Uh, but I know, cause I mean, that's, again, that's an artist that everybody knew is from their recordings and they're trying to do it live. So like, how does, how does that work? And like, what challenges does that give you? That's 

Jim van Bergen: well, it's really cool. So Rain is a, is a tribute, right? So it's a tribute band. Um, and these guys, they, they do the wigs, they do the costumes, they do the voices, they really work hard to try and emulate. the different parts of the Beatles and their albums and the different times that they were performing, right? 

They're trying to hit iconic moments and they use every trick in the book to try and make that happen and make it as cool an experience for the audience as humanly possible. So there are some tracks involved, there's some playback, there's some sampling. Most of what they're doing is actually playing it live and these guys, you know, they learned their instruments because 

So they learned those songs and they learned them really, really well and they, you know, joined tribute bands and this became a mega tribute band and this, uh, you know, so, so rain on Broadway, you know, as these guys tour, you know, the world and the U S and Canada constantly. Um, and they wanted to bring this to, uh, you know, to, uh, to Broadway for a few weeks and make some dough. 

Well, it was really successful. They extended, changed theaters, you know, extended again, extended again, extended again, kept on running until, you know, the theater owners were like, we have to put another show in here. Time for you to go. Bye. You know, but, um, we had an amazing run and I didn't know what it was going to be like. 

I thought it was exciting. I, I knew the music, I knew I was getting involved with, uh, the sound designer was Abe Jacob, you know. Broad, the godfather of theatrical sound design, right? The godfather, the original, you know, Broadway sound designer. The guy who did Cats and Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar, you know, uh, and he's been a mentor and a friend for many, many years. 

I was very excited on working that with him and, you know, working on a sound system, mixing a show that was like this, you don't ever get an opportunity to do this, you know. Um, so that part was really, really cool. And, um, The audiences were phenomenal. They had religious experiences. We had people who had come in, and I did not expect this at all, but people who had gone to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium, who weren't able to actually hear anything because the sound systems were terrible back then, people come to me in tears saying, I got to relive what it was like when I was It was amazing. 

11 or 12. And I got to hear everything and it sounded just like the record. And so they had a better experience than they thought. They recreated the experience when they were young and they made it better by having it be everything they really wanted it to be. As they saw the guys, you know, they might not have been the right people or, you know, looked awfully close, sounded really close, but it really sounded just like the record. 

And they had that live experience. So spectacular stuff. I cannot tell you how many people stopped by on a nightly basis or on a show basis to tell me, thank you. It sounded amazing. We had a great time, you know. Um, yeah. So when I was mixing, yeah, when I was mixing Rain and also when I mixed Rocktopia, like the number of people who stopped by the mixing console to say that was amazing. 

Fantastic. You know, the sound was tremendous. It sounded awesome. You know, it was just like so much fun to do, you know, hard to mix, but super, super fun to do. The guys with the rain, um, they were awesome and they were tough cookies. They would come out and, and yell at me if they didn't think I was getting the mix right. 

They would, they would come up to me and go, look, one of the guys, Joey, he put his finger in my chest. He goes, go home, listen to the record. I was like, all right, I know the song, man. I know the song is, no, go home and listen to the record again. Like, okay, I got the note and I would go home and I'd listen to it. 

I'd be like, shit, man, he's right. He's right. He's right. The bass is louder in this section and the bass needs to sound just like this. I'm like, all right. You know what? I thought I knew exactly what that song sounded like. It sounded like what I thought about and what I thought was, was there, but he's listened to that recording more times than I have. 

He's playing an instrument. He's thinking about it differently than I am. You know, I'm thinking about. How do you tell that story? He's thinking about, how do I tell that story as this person? How do I tell that story in this, with this instrument? And I needed that perspective. So Joey, wherever you are, man, love you. 

Thank you. All those guys from that band, tremendous people. Steve Landis. You know, uh, I'm not remembering everybody's names at the moment, but man, spectacular bunch of musicians, really talented. And on the one hand, some people were like, Oh my God, it's a cover band, it's a tribute band. Um, I had one guy who'd be like, man, it's like the dudes who do this on a cruise ship. 

Well, it's the guys who do this at the absolute top level in the industry. And you know, you can make fun of an Elvis impersonator, but you can have a great time. These guys do a tremendous job paying respect to the greatest band of all time, right? So God bless. And, uh, I, I didn't know I was going to love it as much as I did. 

I loved mixing that show. And when we closed, it was heartbreaking for me. So, I mean, I, I have. You know, never had an issue when a Broadway show closed. I'm like, this is the nature of our beast. Um, it's, it's the way our business goes, you know, it's all cyclical. It hit me in a very different way when Reign closed, you know, and it was time to say goodbye to those guys. 

It was really hard. Like the tears did not stop. rough, but, uh, you know, Hey, onto the next thing. I moved on to the next thing, had a great time the next show, but, uh, you know, it's a very special time in my life. And, uh, I had no idea how much I was going to love mixing that show. 

Andy Leviss: Awesome. And you know, for the listeners, For the listeners at home, I want to hammer home like that point he made about going home to listen to the record brings us back to on the live episode, what Ryan was saying the other week about how like, you can only focus on so many parts of a song at one time. 

And part of our job is to both know and pick which parts to bring to the to and the listeners attention at any given time to make the song be what it needs to be. And I feel like that's a solid example to like kind of hammer that point Ryan made home. 

Jim van Bergen: yeah, but it's it's funny, you know, when I realized that I'd been making a mistake going Oh, well that album I'd been thinking the bass should be in this position all the time and in that one song that Joey was Pissed off about you know, he's like the bass is supposed to be here and sound like this to right now I'm like, you know what he was right. 

He was paying all the attention to it You know, and I was paying attention to a different part of the song. I was listening to the voice How's it telling the story what was going on? You know, I was listening to rhythm Harmony You know, melody. I wasn't listening to the other part of it, what the bassline was doing in that moment, and how it changed in the course of the song, right? I was like, do I have my top four things happening? Am I telling the story? Yes. And I had not really paid enough attention to it. I mean, he heard it right away and was like, nope, fix that. 

And I was like, oh crap, okay, you know, so it's great lesson, you know, to make sure you're paying attention to all the elements all the time, you know, and, and what is the arc for every part of those elements in the song, you know, every song has that arc and we think about it, you know, how are we telling the story, but do you think about where every instrument is from the beginning of the end, you know, where does it start? 

Why does the tambourine come at this one place? Yeah. Why is there an Afuchi Kabasa that then goes away? You know, how come the singer decided to double these voices in this place? And you know, why is it there? Or did the producer make that choice? You know, what was done after the fact? What was done during the session? 

You know, what did they painstakingly decide in, you know, in months and months or days and days in the studio to make this happen this way? So, you know, we have to try and make the best choices that we can to, uh, to transmit that properly to the audience. And, you know, not only is it a labor of love, but it's a great responsibility we carry to make sure that we're trying to get the artist's intention back to the audience. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Jim van Bergen: I feel like, you know, hey man, preacher preaching to the choir. 

Sean Walker: No, man, but it's 

Andy Leviss: but it's Yeah, and it's useful both for those of us who know it or think we know it and those who don't, and it's always a good reminder, and I know that's, like, that's one of the things, like, that I know I've learned over the years of, like, after struggling on, like, longer running shows, of, like, you get into the groove of what you think is cool, of a song, a scene in a play, whatever, and And emphasize that and forget the parts that like somebody who's seeing it for the first time may need to get maximum enjoyment or maximum understanding out of it. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, I mean, it's funny because, you know, you can go back to a show you've been mixing for years and years and go, Man, you know, I wasn't paying attention to that third cello part, but now this sub has come in and they're murdering it. I really miss having the right part there, you know. It can be heartbreaking, you know. 

Well, and if you're not paying attention to it, you know, but when you hear it wrong, you know, your ear goes, What the hell was that, you know? Been there, you know, have been mixing, uh, mixing Chicago, you know, I mixed Chicago off and on for eight years. And when somebody came in and they clammed on that, man, it was crazy. 

I remember seeing, you know, some musicians go down in flames and watching what happens live during a show and somebody gets upset with that. It's fascinating to watch that 

Andy Leviss: And in that show they're on stage too, which makes it that much more 

Jim van Bergen: yes, they're, they're up there. You know, they're on a riser. Everybody is in the clear. You can see exactly what's happening every second of it, you know? 

So if I can tell a terrible story about that, we had a sub drummer in and BB North, uh, was starring as Velma. Sub drummer did not have the right cues in the right place. Came in and didn't, didn't do a great job. Was trying his best. Didn't have enough time. Didn't have enough chance. Didn't, didn't know enough. 

Did a pretty decent job, but missed some really key parts. Um, finished, finished the song, struggled through it, made it through, audience probably noticed a couple of small flubs, wouldn't have known how much it was, but the next book scene starts and I'm hearing smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, pick up the comm, what's going on, BB's kicking the back of the bandstand, she's furious, she's asking for that person to get fired, I was like, oh my god, what's going on backstage right now, this is a big old drama, and I totally understand, like, because You It's her butt on stage, you know, she's doing, you know, this incredible acrobatics. 

She's dancing her heart out, dancing and singing live with no track, you know, she's putting herself out there and she's wearing basically, you know, a tiny piece of underwear and Paul heels. And she's putting every bit of energy she has to perform and to kick ass. And this is a huge number and the timing is very specific. 

And if somebody doesn't match that timing and they miss their rim shots. Well, she's out there looking like an idiot and everybody else looks okay. So I felt horrible for her, but you know, hey, they fixed it. They got it all taken care of. But, uh, and it was when it, when it was happening, it was a, uh, a sight to behold, you know, it's like being in the middle of the eye of the, of the, of the hurricane going, crap, what's happening next. 

Sean Walker: Dude, 

Jim van Bergen: Good 

Sean Walker: would be intense. Just the other end of com, sounded like the whole place is blowing up. 

Jim van Bergen: what is that huge pounding going on backstage? That's Bebe. You know, this little tiny, little tiny lady, huge amount of talent, all of that anger, all that frustration. You know, if somebody totally, you know, messing up that number and all the work she's put into it, like, oh god, you know, feeling, feeling for the drummer, feeling for Bebe, you know, feeling for what's going on and then watching the audience go. 

We're watching the scene. What's that thumping in the background? Like you do not want to know. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: Don't, this is a don't ask, don't tell situation. 

Jim van Bergen: well, you know, hey, look, man, long running shows on Broadway, you know, they all have stories about things that have gone well, things have gone wrong. Oh, crazy stuff. I remember, you know, watching somebody get violently ill in the middle of cats. And people standing up, you know, 

Andy Leviss: Watching the show or in the show? God, 

Jim van Bergen: people, people who are watching the show get violently ill. 

I have stories about people who are on stage, like running off stage and puking and going, oh, like having to figure out who was, who was actually throwing up and pull that fader out and then track them throughout the show. Have they made it? Are they on stage? Have they been swapped out 

Andy Leviss: they really nailed the cat sounds in this. 

Jim van Bergen: Wow. Yeah. Some scary stuff. 

Sean Walker: You just hit and recorded the sound and make that a sound fix package for later. You're like, Oh, I'm gonna sell this to NBC. 

Andy Leviss: I mean, I've, and I've, I've seen some crazy stuff with like talent guy. Like I remember touring the full Monty, you know, I'm like one of my first jobs out of school 20 years ago. And we had a lead who decided he did not like his understudies. So, so help him. That understudy was never going on. So dude went on with like kidney stones. 

Like the couple of times he was off stage, like run into the bathroom, buckle it. Like they had the understudy in the wings and costume cause he looked so bad, but out of spite, he pushed his way through it. It was. Awful to 

Sean Walker: my gosh. 

Jim van Bergen: Kidney stones, man. Oh, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. 

Jim van Bergen: that is a new level of pain. I had a doctor tell me, you know, that's as bad as labor. And I was like, Hmm, not going to say that out loud to anybody I love, but, uh, okay. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. I'm 

Andy Leviss: Sean likes to refer to as the divorce prevention plan. 

Jim van Bergen: There you go. Yep. Yeah. I was, uh, I was doing a play on Broadway. I was doing playback for the show art that had, uh, Uh, Alfred Molina and Alan Alda, um, in it and oh my God, who's that other guy who was so phenomenal, brilliant, brilliant performer, you know, star, three stars, three tremendous people. Um, but, uh, I passed a kidney stone in the show, ran downstairs, ran downstairs and like was in such agony. 

And the stage manager said, you're a pale guy, but I have never seen you as white as a sheep. Just trying to make it through like the next scene, hit the go button and get through and, you know, mix foot mics at the same time. Oh my God. Terrible. Terrible. 

Sean Walker: At least it passed. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, totally. Totally. I mean, oof. I have suggestions, people, if you're ever going through that, but I don't think it's worth sharing on a podcast. 

Andy Leviss: I was going to say, what, what wine goes with kidney stone? So for, for those who don't know, Jim, Jim also has a wine blog and is, is a, a wine connoisseur as it were. So it was, is one of the best phone of friends to have when you need a wine pairing. 

Jim van Bergen: Well, there you go. It's funny because I've been on several different podcasts about wine and alcohol and drinking more than I have about broadcast and audio, even though that's been my career for the last 30 some odd years. So it's kind of funny. 

Andy Leviss: I mean, to a certain point, this is a podcast about alcohol and drinking, but 

Jim van Bergen: There you go. So nice 

Sean Walker: Andy's, Andy's always drinking on our podcast. 

Andy Leviss: I'm still still nursing the coffee today. 

Sean Walker: There you go. We need to, we need to phone a friend about cigars, Andy. If JVB is going to be wine, we need to phone a friend about cigars so we can like, get it. We need a whiskey friend and a cigar friend. We've already got a bazillion coffee friends, I think. We're to get that covered. 

Jim van Bergen: What kind of cigars do you like to smoke? 

Sean Walker: All of them. 

Jim van Bergen: Okay. right. Damn. I would never say that personally, but okay. It's like, what beer do you like? All the beer? Really? All? Okay. 

Sean Walker: Oh man. When I, when I was a drinker, the kind of beer I liked was the cold kind. 

Jim van Bergen: Have you stopped drinking since then? 

Sean Walker: Uh, yeah I did a couple years ago. I went to the, uh, went to the doctor to get a checkup and they were like, Hey man, are you much of a drinker? And I was like, Ha ha ha ha ha! Why yes, I'm a professional. And they were like, well if you'd like to see your grandkids, you should stop that. And I was like, Jameson, grandkids, Jameson, grandkids, Jameson, grandkids. 

And my wife, she punched me in the shoulder and she was like, what? And I was like, what? And she was like, really? And I was like, fine, grandkids. 

Andy Leviss: But can we at least name one of them, Jameson? 

Sean Walker: You're totally, totally, 

Jim van Bergen: are named Jameson, Jack? 

Andy Leviss: And you've got four of them all named Rose? 

Sean Walker: yeah, right. What? These are my grandkids. Heineken, Jamison, 

Andy Leviss: And the four Roses. 

Jim van Bergen: That's right. Rose, Rose, Rose and Rose. 

Andy Leviss: Um, bringing it back slightly on 

Jim van Bergen: How come you named that baby one Widow Jane? I understand Jane, but why Widow Jane? Well, let me tell you. 

Sean Walker: All right. To answer your, to answer your question seriously about cigars. My favorite currently is the, my father, the judge, but that's, that's the one I'm, I've, I've did currently. It's a. Easy to find, tasty, and doesn't, like, make me cross eyed by halfway through the whole thing, you know what I mean? 

Jim van Bergen: Hmm. You know, there's a real joy about actual Cuban cigars. You know, how, how quickly they can make you empty your bowels. It's a beautiful thing. 

Sean Walker: Totally. Totally. 

Jim van Bergen: There's something about that nicotine. It's like, huh, who needs prunes and salad when you can smoke the right cigar? And it'll just be like, hang on, I'll be back. 

Sean Walker: Totally. Man, my other favorite, speaking of that, is the Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure Special. We had a, I had a box of those, and man, those were tasty. 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: Just tasty, but 

Jim van Bergen: I'm trying to remember who the manufacturer is who makes this short story. That was a tremendous cigar I used to love. 

Sean Walker: Oh, dude, uh 

Jim van Bergen: Yeah, Arturo Fuente. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally. And it's just like a little dude. You can just like, get him, little, you know what I mean? You can get it in quick, almost, almost on a smoke break with your friends that smoke cigarettes, but not quite. 

Jim van Bergen: mean, if they're doing a 10 minute smoke break, you can get that into like 12 or 14, but, you know, decent ring size, you know. 

Sean Walker: yep, for sure, for sure. All right, Andy, we got a, we got a cigar friend too. Look at that. He's like triple duty right now. Audio, wine, cigars, like 

Jim van Bergen: I'm, I'm no expert when it comes to cigars. I'm no expert at all. 

Sean Walker: I'm not either, but I need an expert, somebody to, you know, sort me out here. 

Andy Leviss: so, so bringing it back around a little more audio just to, to kind of lead us towards an ending. 

Sean Walker: Why you gotta be the buzzkill, Andy? Why you gotta be the buzzkill? 

Andy Leviss: Andy Levison. 

Sean Walker: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! 

Jim van Bergen: We're gonna talk about jazz or come from away or 

Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, I mean, at this point we're bordering on like we gotta have you back for like a second whole episode at some point. Um, 

Jim van Bergen: So I can talk trash about mixing game shows 

Andy Leviss: right? 

Sean Walker: Into it. The price is wrong, Bob! 

Jim van Bergen: Oh, dude, let me tell you. Okay, Sean, you'll, so I'll give this, this little short story, right? My first day on a set of a game show, everybody welcomes me and they go, welcome to the Sausage Factory. I'm like, excuse me? I mean, that's, you know, it's what they do day in, day out, garbage in, garbage out. It's like five or six shows a day, five or six episodes a day. 

And it's just like cranking this. Turd out as it goes. So, yep. Yep. And that's why I did that for like a year and a half and then said, never again. Never again. 

Sean Walker: Fair enough. Fair enough. 

Jim van Bergen: Good times. Jobs you don't want to have. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Totally. 

Jim van Bergen: Well, you know, it's like the guy who mixes a bar band in a place where they throw beer, right? 

Sean Walker: Dude. How frustrating. I've never, I mean, I've mixed plenty of barbands in my life, but never at a place where they throw beer. But the one time that somebody gets too drunk and throws a beer, you're like, that's enough. Nope. I couldn't do it at a whole place that was literally like, roadhouse, you know what I mean? 

Where it was like chicken wire and like, somebody could, I'm sure that's a good time for somebody, but I'd, I'd lose my noodle. 

Andy Leviss: look, and we're not gonna kink shame, 

Jim van Bergen: Hey, Andy, you're allowed to have whatever you want, man. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right? Totally. I see your chicken wire at the back of your screen there, buddy. 

Jim van Bergen: Dude. Blues brothers. Much, much love. Oh, 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah, man. 

Jim van Bergen: But Roadhouse, very funny story. 

Sean Walker: Oh, 

Jim van Bergen: uh, rest his soul, Patrick Swayze, uh, did a cover, uh, as Billy Flynn on Chicago the Musical. So really, I have a couple fun stories about that, but I'll have to talk with, uh, with Andy's other half, Kate, about that before I ever talk about it on a podcast. 

Andy Leviss: Uh oh. 

Jim van Bergen: Well, you know, Kate mixes it now, right? She's covering for John. She, she and John, uh, take turns mixing the show. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, well we're gonna, at some point we're gonna do a Chicago hour, cause once I can line up schedule with John he's gonna come on, Alyssa, who's the other cover mate, may pop in as a guest host to give John shit, cause you gotta have somebody to give John shit. 

Jim van Bergen: Excellent. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Jim van Bergen: Well, you should get, you should get, uh, Jenny Montgomery to give John shit. 

Andy Leviss: I mean that too. 

So John and Jenny are another, uh, another New York, uh, sound couple that we're friends with and yeah, John is, is at this point the longest tenured mixer on any Broadway show. Uh, a couple of years ago he passed Craig Cassidy on Mamma Mia. 

Jim van Bergen: Yep. God bless him. 

Andy Leviss: Yep. Yep. 

Jim van Bergen: I cannot tell you how happy I was. I was like, he was, he was my sub when I was running out the door in Chicago and he figured out how to keep his head down and keep a job there. And he's a better man than I. I love him to death. He's a great guy. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. No, he's, he's a good guy. And he's, we were actually just texting today about trying to figure out when we can get him on. 

Jim van Bergen: Excellent. 

Sean Walker: Nice. 

Jim van Bergen: Well, when you decide you want to do a podcast, talk about, uh, mounting microphones, you know, in all types of people, in all types of situations, you should do that hour with Jenny Montgomery. 

Sean Walker: I totally want to know about that. I do the straightforward corporate and concert kind of stuff. I am totally into learning about all the weird mounting microphones on people and stop signs and dude, tell me all about it. I want to know. 

Jim van Bergen: Well, you'll, you'll have 

Sean Walker: I'm here for the weird shit, 

Jim van Bergen: there you go. You'll have to hire Jenny. You'll have to bring, bring Jenny on for that one. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, we're definitely talking about like, maybe bring like Kate, Jenny, skip like some of that whole gang 

Jim van Bergen: that'd be awesome. Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: they do. I, I can't say for sure. Cause the, there's the, the intros and, and can you, and will you are still out, but definitely on my list of stuff we're trying to make 

Jim van Bergen: Well, it's very funny because all the shows, all the corporate shows we have at Jazz, you know, when I find out what's going on, like the first series of phone calls, I'll call Kate, I'll call Jenny, I'll call a couple of the absolute top people and say, are you available? Is there any chance you might want to come work at Jazz and do this? 

Like, you know, what do I have to do? Like, should I bake you cookies? You know, come and join. What can I do? I'll be like, uh, hey, Kate, Andy will drive you. 

Sean Walker: I mean, cookies works like 90 percent of the time. Right? 

Andy Leviss: so I, I, we generally have a rule here that I, that, uh, I, I don't talk, uh, Kate or us on the podcast, but there's one story that I think she'll let me get away with telling because Jim's here, 

Sean Walker: Careful, careful. Don't end up on the couch, bro. 

Andy Leviss: um, I'm treading carefully, but we did the, it was a couple of years ago, uh, at, at Jim's previous house gig, Jim, uh, had a gig that he needed an A1 or an A2 for, and he booked us both and was like, are you two cool working together? 

And we were like, yeah. And so we walk into the room and Jim looks at us, says, here's the rundown of what the day is. One of you is the A1, one of you is the A2, and spun around on his heel and walked out of the room. 

Sean Walker: And you were like, babe, which one do you want to do? I'll do the other one. 

Andy Leviss: Oh no, I was straight up, you want to mix, right? And she was like, yep. And I was like, cool, I'll start battering up. And it was a great day. 

Sean Walker: Good talk. 

Andy Leviss: That's, that's, 

Sean Walker: that's another man that's on the divorce prevention program. 

Andy Leviss: well, I, I. I always readily say, and I say this to her too, I am solidly the second best mixer in my house. 

Jim van Bergen: Wow, smart man. You know, hey, look, it's also, it's also really good, you know, I try to put together teams of people who can do a lot of different things and do it well. So I know that I had people who could do just about anything, and you have lots of reasons why you might want to be in one position or another on a given day. 

And sometimes, you know, it's difficult for me, it's as when I Have to select some of my best people and be like, you're going to be behind the console. You're going to do everything else. You're going to be, you know, in this room, you're going to be doing that. You're going to be doing comm, you're going to be doing wireless. 

You're going to be moving stuff around. You know, it's like sometimes you need people to do other jobs. You need the best people to do something else because sometimes the hardest job is not throwing faders. You know, sometimes the hardest job is dealing with the shit that's going to come down the pike in the course of the day. 

Sean Walker: Totally. Totally. 

Jim van Bergen: of, oh, by the ways that happen in our business. Especially in corporate. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, you know, I'm going to ask one more question to kind of wrap this up, just because I know Jim's got to get going and we're running long, but we definitely got to get you back on and we, cause we've got many, many more topics we can touch on that I would love 

Jim van Bergen: We'll talk jazz later. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Thanks for 

Andy Leviss: jazz, talk some of the more recent Broadway. 

I mean, we could just do an, uh And a whole episode probably with you on the evolution of mixing on Broadway, because from starting with like, like almost pre VCA automation, right? If you go back far 

Jim van Bergen: Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, Katz was the, was the pre A type, so it did not have VCAs. It was mixing inputs into groups, into matrices. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. So there's definitely a lot of stuff we'll bring you back on and talk about. But just to wrap this one up, I know you mentioned earlier when we were talking about rain about how like Abe was a mentor of yours. And I know It's like, it's been something that I think you've tried to carry on very much, both, you know, going as far back like 20 years ago when I was in college to folks today of like mentoring folks and, you know, kind of helping guide people in the industries and, and, you know, sometimes just helping people avoid making the mistakes you might've made. 

And if we were going to wrap that up, if, if for like younger listeners starting out in the industry now, if you had like one piece of advice you could give them, what would that be? 

Jim van Bergen: Listen with your ears. Ask a lot of questions, but listen. Uh, you will learn so much by hanging out with the people who've been doing this for a while. And, you know, like if you sit there and you're quiet in the background, you pay attention to what's happening, you'll learn an awful lot about the room. But, you know, you can't. 

I'm going to be my best job being silent, trying to hear everything else is going on. Right. So people will try and listen. They'll say they're listening while they're having a conversation, and they, you know, we have to pay attention that way, but you have to really spend some time. You know, put your ears to it and listen to what your friends are saying, what your competitors are saying. 

You get into a room, finally, you want to listen to what the people who've been doing this for a while have to say. You might figure out something that they've been missing. You might figure out what they've been doing and the secrets of the trade that they haven't shared with you. You know, you might figure out a lot of different things. 

You're going to figure out certainly the temperature of the room, who's in charge, you know, who's calling the shots, what the issues are, if you pay attention. You know, but you have to actually really listen to what's going on in a room, whether it's a, you know, a rehearsal for a, for a band or a rock concert or a corporate event or whatever it might be, you know, or even just a production meeting, you know, who's in charge, you know, what's missing, what's happening here, you know, and get a real sense of what's happening. 

For mixing, oh man, there's a lot to learn. There's so much technique and it took me years before I really understood somebody else showing me, you know, what the difference is when you do compressive mixing and you are making adjustments on the syllable and half syllable and why you would make those adjustments on the syllable and half syllable. 

So much, you know, finesse that goes into mixing a Broadway show. And there's, the differences that we use for mixed television are radically different, and it's a really different process, you know, what you're trying to accomplish. It's not the same kind of emotional, expressive, uh, translation to a live audience. 

When we're doing television, you're really mixing in to try and make sure that you're having the right thing come out, uh, from the codec that you're putting into it. You know, it's all about your compression and your balances and your stems and how you're able to do multiple mixes and multiple formats at the same time. 

It's very technically inclined, and yet there still is an art to it. But, like, when I mix music for air, you know, I have a very different approach to what I'm doing than when I'm mixing music for live live. Was that a very roundabout answer to your 

Andy Leviss: mean, 

Sean Walker: totally, 

Andy Leviss: totally, no, and I feel like that was, that was even a couple tidbits all in one. Um, 

Sean Walker: I guess one last question while you were talking about just the difference of that. Is there, Something about mixing the music for broadcast that technically you're saying they're different, but like, is it technically very different? Are there different levels? Are there different like aggressive or less aggressive treatments to it? 

Or. You know, how is it technically very different for you? 

Jim van Bergen: When you listen back to the delivery system that your broadcast is going on, it's going to have a compression codec that will or will not agree with what you've done previously. So I think it's very important that you do compressive mixing going into it. In a different way than what we would do for theater, but to try and keep things in the right ballpark, you know, whether you're mixing for LUFS or for VU, you're trying to keep it in the right pocket, trying to have the right amount of dynamic response, yet having it be loud enough or soft enough to be, you know, in a sound. 

In a car or loud environment or in a podcast or, you know, whatever it's going to come back to when you're watching on YouTube later, you're on a compressed format or you're on your computer, you know, all those things have an effect. And I have 30 years of the benefit of being able to listen back to my content because I spent the time going back and listening to my work after the work is done, right? 

And, and hearing that back and going, boy, I don't like the way that worked. I, you know, I, I know what I listened to when I was mixing it. I know how it delivered. I have a recording back from it, but this is how this codec treated it. This is how this codec treated it. And in the last 10 years, the way, yeah, the way that our compression algorithms have changed, so, you know, the, the volume wars, right. 

15, 20 years ago, it was a whole other thing, right? How loud can it be? 

Sean Walker: Yeah, I got a studio background. I'm with you. 

Jim van Bergen: There you go. So, now it's the Kodak Wars, which is, am I getting back what I'm putting out? No, does it sound the same? Should it sound the same? How should it sound? Right? So, how you mix for television really makes a difference. 

Sean Walker: So you're listening back to your desk mix going, man, the desk mix is smokin and then you listen to the after the codec or the broadcast mix and you're like, man, that's not the same thing. Kind of like when we're in the studio listening to what's happening in the studio and then you listen to it on FM radio and you're like, what the f what did they do to my frickin song? 

Right? Okay, I gotcha. 

Jim van Bergen: listening to it, you know, on the big reds, and that's why, you know, in the, in the 80s and the 90s, you know, we'd listen to everything, you'd take a cassette deck, you'd listen to it in your car, you'd listen to it in a boombox, you'd listen to it in every possible arena, because you want to listen to it, what's it going to sound like when you, when it sounds like ass, right? 

So that's why if you made something sound good, like an awful, in an awful tone, you know, okay, that mix translates. If it's making, if it sounds good on NS10s, it'll sound good, you know, in most systems, right? It'll sound good in most mediocre sound systems. Uh, and that's the same kind of thing as you're listening to it going, all right, I'm listening to it on Genelecs. 

That's not the same as the computer's, the speaker that I've got. It's not the same as the EarPods that you're listening to. It's not the same as somebody's cheap 3 headphones. You know, or somebody else's, you know, equivalent version of a mono TV speaker someplace, right? 

Sean Walker: sure. 

Jim van Bergen: Best case scenario, worst case scenario. 

And then the codecs, because they're all different. You know, each of the different, uh, uh, formats that something's going to go into, you know, each of those different encoders is a different codec. They all treat audio differently. And the first time that I heard back a mix where satellite had stripped out the bottom. 

And I had no bass guitar and no kick drum in a mix. And I was like, what the heck is going on with my TV mix? Right? Like my phone is ringing. I'm in the middle of a live broadcast. And the guy who's the front of house mixer for this artist, who's in the hotel room, you know, somewhere far, far away, is like, Dude, where's the kick drum? 

Come listen to the mix because I can't. I'm way far, far away, but I was like, okay, you're on the phone. Can you hear the kick drum in the mix here? I'm like, he's like, yeah, but the kick drum is there because it is not in the air mix, right? So I'm 

Sean Walker: no, 

Jim van Bergen: screaming, I'm screaming at my A2. I need, I need the broadcast, uh, transmission guy to get in here. 

I need to get a, you know, a confirmation mix back in here so we can hear what's going on. He's like, he's like, we're on the edge of the satellite, we've got the edge of the bird, I don't have full frequency range, this is sounding, it's going up there, it's sounding great, I'm like, it's sounding great, he goes, everything is there, I'm like, something is not there, I'm like, can I hear this back, there was nothing happening below, below like 160 cycles, you know, so it's like, hmm, Well, and that teaches me, right? 

So, instead of wanting to have the feel of the kick drum, I needed to have something else to make that happen. So, you know, not only was I learning what wasn't happening, but I also need to learn, what do I need to do to make up for that? And it may not be the right sound artistically, but I need to make sure somebody can hear that instrument. 

You know, if it's being missed, you know, whether that's the technical issue of the bird or not, you know, it's up to me to make sure it's there. 

Sean Walker: Sure. Totally. Do you find yourself, like, compressing those entire mixes into the codec more to keep it more even than you would for a typical live show? Or not necessarily? How do you manage those different codecs? Do you make that package tighter with compressors? 

Jim van Bergen: I raise the overall volume of my mix, and I keep a very specific dynamic range. Like, I try to make sure that my dynamic range is between 12 and 16 dB, and I try to make sure that my floor starts at a level that's, uh, way higher than I would if it was a recording or a live show. But so, yeah, so for air, you know, I really raised the bottom of my position. 

I'm, you know, working hard trying to make sure that the noise is gone. Now the funny part is if it's a show where there's dead air or there's ever silence in it, you know, you got to make sure your silence is still silent, right? So your dynamic range gets really, really wide. But it was like the first time I listened to, you know, like you said, like an FM transmission. 

And you go, well, gee, something took my mix and went and squished it way down for the, for the radio, for the audience listeners at home. JVB just took two wide fingers and squished it way down, super narrow, compressed the living hell out of my mix. And I was like, okay, so how does that work? You know, if I'm listening to Holst, you know, the planet, the planets, you know, and I hear that dynamic range in our, in a, in a concert hall and you try and relate that. To a pressing, to a record pressing. Well, gee, there's an awful lot of noise in that. 

It doesn't translate the same way. Other engineers have dealt with this before us, you know, you know, that's why there are some of the most spectacular, uh, compressors and limiters available in the world. You know, the Fairchild was built for a reason, right? Uh, even the DBX, the DBX algorithms were built for a reason, right? 

So all of those are, you know, but the question is, how are people using them? And, uh, we're not necessarily being taught the same way that people are doing it. You know, we want to learn DECA for a specific reason, but like the compression, the limiting, it's really important. So, as technology changes, those codecs are changing, we have to change with the times, make sure we're doing the right thing. 

You know, those online discussions about, oh, how many LUFS? Yeah, it's really important. You need to pay attention to it, because if you're mixing for those mediums, it's got to be right. Think of the guys who are doing the music and the sound effects for, for video games right now, you know. It's crazy stuff, you know, getting the gunshots and the, you know, voices and the, and the responses back and the music in the right place. 

And how did all that work? And the fact that it has to be able to constantly adjust given where a player is in a given moment. It's fascinating stuff, you know, 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. 

Jim van Bergen: so we can talk about this all day long. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, for sure. But we're pushing an hour and a half here, so we, we should totally wrap this up. 

Andy Leviss: we'll wrap it up there, and I'll 

Sean Walker: sorry for asking nine more thousand questions. 

Jim van Bergen: No, I'm sorry for boring the crap out of you. 

Andy Leviss: no, 

Sean Walker: dawg. Thanks for 

Andy Leviss: we're all having a good time, and I will throw it out to listeners, too, if you want to, uh, email, and we'll definitely work on having Jim back for more stories in another episode, so, Signal2Noise@ProSoundWeb.com--that's a number 2, and it's in the show notes. Uh, you know, we're always open to suggestions, but also if you have questions you want us to ask Jim, if we have him back on for another episode, send them our way. Um, otherwise, uh, I'm Andy Leviss. That's, uh, Sean Walker, Jim van Bergen. We're brought to you as always by our sponsors, RCF and Allen and Heath, and this has been another episode of Signal and Noise on the ProSoundWeb podcast network. We'll see you next time. 

Jim van Bergen: Thanks for inviting me guys. Appreciate you. 

Sean Walker: Thanks for coming. 

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green