Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1277927
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I S U M M E R 2 0 2 0 49 THE GRAMMYS Longtime producer Ken Ehrlich reimagined the Grammy Awards to become a celebration of music, "Music's Biggest Night," and not just an awards show. He gave the show its distinctive and unique "Tribute" performances—mash-ups of artists you've never seen perform together and likely never will again. It's exactly that revolution that made the Grammy Awards the most challenging and technically advanced audio production ever attempted. So, when it comes to sound mixing, are the Grammy Awards the same or similar to an awards show like the Oscars or the Emmys? The answer is definitely yes and absolutely not! As we break down the Grammys audio team like we did with the Oscars, my answer will make perfect sense. The Grammy Awards are the flip side of sound mixing for live awards shows. It is a music show first and foremost. For fun, they throw in a handful of awards just to give them time to make staging changes for the next band. That's not really true, but it is the music that rules the night at the Grammys. THE STAGE When we last saw our two caped crusaders... Interestingly enough, our two Grammy monitor mixers are also Mike Parker and Tom Pesa. Interesting for our comparison of these two shows, not surprising however, in that there is a small community of professionals who work at this high level of production and do these top-tier shows. The Grammys concept is to have two main performance stages alternating back-and-forth. While Stage A is rehearsing or performing, Stage B is setting up, patching, and doing line checking. The two monitor setups work independently of each other, servicing both stages as needed. For the show, there are roughly 22 performances in the room. In addition to their stages, either monitor mixer might handle an occasional performance out in the house itself on what they refer to as the "dish stage." There might also be the occasional remote performance from New York or Nashville. For the Grammys, Mike and Tom start communicating with the artist weeks ahead of the show. Over the years, they have come to know many of the artists' personal monitor mixers, as well as the artists themselves. This helps jump-start the process with a comfort factor. What is never the same on the Grammys is that the show is made up of so many tribute performances, where multiple artists, who have never or seldom performed together before, do. Often performing songs they've never done before. Rehearsal time at the show can vary. Each act is given, on average, one and a half hours for a given performance. But that time is not just rehearsing the performance itself. It's taken up by normal soundcheck duties like dialing in levels and EQ, camera blocking, and lighting. Just like any other live show they work on, Mike and Tom have to get it right and get it right fast. This is where technical skill meets diplomatic skill, especially with multiple artists in a performance, all having their own monitor mixer on site. Tom describes it this way: "Mike Parker and I kind of laugh sometimes at how big of an entourage can be surrounding a monitor console. You can have eight to 10 individual monitor mixers surrounding you waiting for their artist's part in a song. I'll go to the end to listen, accommodate requests and special needs and make it all happen for everybody as best I can. And with today's technology, there's no reason you can't create a great environment for people. But I do have to take control as you quickly run out of time and production has to move on." In having to move so quickly during setup and rehearsals, Mike explains, "I've been doing this for close to 35 years. I know a lot of artists and their mixers who are pretty comfortable with me from the start. Tom and I will do a pre-dial or pre-mix before the artist steps on stage for rehearsals; what we think is right and start from there. But even then, every artist wants something different." Mike continues, "Most of the younger artists only know in-ears. While some of the older school artists still want standard speaker wedges. And then there's the artist who wears RF world at the Grammys.