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For some reason you can hear Brian perfectly singing along with Jeff in this footage taken from inside the Staples Center, as opposed to what was heard on TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPs5r2mcoEM

Thank you for posting that! Very, very, very cool to get the audience perspective.

No seriously, after hearing that, was it a bad performance? I thought it had a lot of power, I also think there is a lot more energy on this recording than what was broadcast and what I heard at home, which suffered from a muddy mix, I think...the band was TIGHT!

Use this clip to sell reunion tickets. ;D Worked in this house. :)

wow, sounds a lot less sterile. can't imagine this more natural sound going over as well to the world at large though.

This vid desrves it's own thread. i posted it on another last week.
Great stuff

I still can't believe how much stronger this sounds...man, that band sounds strong as hell and tight! The broadcast feed just sounded a bit too lifeless, where this sounds like a wall of sound. And the vocals are more evenly balanced on this camera-phone-video recording than on the live feed! Damn.

Maybe it's because we're hearing this video in mono instead of stereo... ;D

Is it true that Mark Linnet did the audio for the Grammy's? I saw it on the Your Place Or Mine website, but not sure if it referred to this year or a previous year. If so, Mark mixed down his own client for TV.

And of course, Brian sounds fucking fine and was unnecessarily muted. Shocker.

man, Mike sounds a lot better here too ... lots of power & punch in the bass vocals, whereas he sounded raspy on the TV clip.

I love how Brian hit the high note in "She's somehow closer now", and the audience broke out in applause.  ;D

sheknowsmetoowell, did you find this over on the Bloo? I think we should be told!?!?!?  :lol


I've heard this happen at live shows. Someone's over-protective, possibly well-meant but depriving us of the pleasure of his voice unnecessarily.

Modified to give credit where it's really due!   ;D

Everyone's assuming that Brian was mixed out on purpose in the TV broadcast. Perhaps, being such a complex mix, it happened as an accident. The house was full of musicians and executives; if he did a bad performance, comments would have spread like fire anyway. Shouldn't they have mixed Brian out of the in-the-place mix too? That's why I think the TV mix was accidental.

BTW, you can hear each guy singing his part perfectly. Fans are the first to mistrust the band.

This was posted last week. On this very forum.

It's not at all unusual to have an in house mixer and a live broadcast mixer.  When I heard this recording last week, I was blown away by how much better it sounded, in terms of punch, and in hearing the Beach Boys vocal blend.  I think that someone in the Grammys and/or CBS production department decided that rather than take chances with Brian forgetting the words, or singing terribly off-key on the broadcast to millions of viewers, they'd use the safety net of Johnston and/or Foskett or whomever it was tripling Brian on the verse.  Perhaps at rehearsals and run-throughs Brian was not giving his all, and CBS got nervous.  In addition, I also think that some of Brian's vocal shortcomings that pop up these days are covered up somewhat by acoustics/natural reverb/echo in the hall.  That would explain why he seldom sounds great on a live TV broadcast, and yet people who attend a show will rave about how good Brian sounded live.  Just my opinion, of course.

Going by another phone video of the event, I think the applause was in response to the big screen cutting to Brian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPt-SxYRYO0  8)

The site mentions the 2011 Grammys, but doesn't mention the 2012 Grammys specifically, nor does it mention whether they did the in-house audio, mobile recording, live broadcast feed, or any combination of those.

Cool ! Thanks for the link.

"And we're gettin' better each year, too"

I totally missed the original post, so this was new to my ears. And I'm glad it was re-posted, because it shed new light on the performance!

I thought at the time it was aired live there were so many instruments on that stage at the same time, the on-air/broadcast mix being fed live may have suffered because of it. Some parts were masked or covered as we listened at home. Yet the mix those people in the audience heard in the arena did not suffer from the same issues several of us pointed out, especially the vocals of Mike and Brian being either too low or buried by other voices.

I don't know, I don't claim to know, maybe someone who *does* know can clarify, but the above post is onto something: The audio being broadcast was probably mixed by CBS' crew and/or truck, and the mix in the arena was done for the arena. Unless they had CBS mix both of them, who knows. And it would be unlikely to have a different sound engineer come in for each performance, but maybe it did happen, who knows.

I'm thinking that would have been a logistical nightmare for a 3-hour live broadcast, to have different engineers coming in to the board and throwing up a custom mix for their own band, then leaving.

That's sooooo much better and sooooo much more Brian.

Still wondering where the cello was or it's sounds came from

Has to be a sample.

Awesome!!!!

Amazing (and probably rare) example of something sounding way better live and in the room rather than through the TV!

Night and day - wow.  The only vocal thing missing is Carl.

COMMENT:  House mix style versus Broadcast mix style

The house mix usually makes musical sense since the mixer is going for a blend that conforms to what the audience is seeing; all musicians on stage.

The broadcast mix usually makes visual sense since the mixer is going to highlight the sound that goes with what is on the screen at a given time. If Brian is shown with other members of the group, he will not be featured. If he is in a closeup shot, then you may hear him slightly elevated in the mix. If a guitar or drum(s) is on screen that will be higher in the mix.

 ~ swd

Brian's Pet Sounds was way better live than on the live CD

Which is strange because when they showed Brian singing the 2nd verse, they lowered him and increased Jeff who was in the back and to the left of the screen. Quite the opposite.

That video is great, you can hear Brian loud and clear and he sounds damn good, stupid Grammy people making us think he wasn't up to it.

I know I sort of suggested in a previous post that a decision regarding the broadcast mix might have been made by the Grammys or CBS, but frankly, we don't know if there was a conscious decision made by anyone to mix Brian lower for TV.  When you look at how much is involved with a production such as this, you should be able to understand that mistakes could (and do) happen.  Think about it, you've got act after act, on several different stages, with very little time in between to set up for the next act.  Each act has different requirements and different mixes.  Just for the Beach Boys segment, you've got at least 20 guys on stage.  Most of those guys have vocal mics that need to be eq'd and have levels set in a very short amount of time.  In addition to that, you've got mics for multiple drum kits (several mics per kit), mics for guitar amps, mics or direct boxes for each set of keys and for bass and assorted woo-woo machines, wind instruments, and percussion.  All of those need eq and levels set in a short amount of time.  And when the producer says 'go', it's time to go.  If a sound engineer is not ready, that's too bad.  It's live TV.  

Wow, that was awesome to hear.  I agree with what others have said, it's great to hear more Brian, and the mix sounds so much more vibrant than it did on the broadcast.  And that's through a crappy cell phone speaker, I would imagine it sounded freaking incredible in the arena.

I just can't chalk up someone accidentally forgetting to have a LEAD VOCAL mic prominent in the mix. They do this sh*t with Jeff doubling Brian and being louder from time to time, we know this.

I doubt it was the "evil Grammy folks" who are at fault, here. It was absolutely intentional and is, again, a total slap in the face to Brian and to fans.

Then why did the live audience hear Brian at full volume? Surely his possible failure to perform competently in person would have been noted by all the industry types in attendance, which would have been damaging in its own way.

Brian's live mix, FWIW, has never turned him down like this. He's always mixed much more like the live footage -- at least at the same volume as Jeff, if not louder.

The grammys certainly aren't live. There's definitely a bit of a delay. Whoever was doing the sound knew exactly what they were doing. Brian sounds good to a fan who knows he could sound far worse, but for the general public it (unfortunately) made sense to mix jeff a lot louder.

Well Stepen nobody made them sound better than you. Good to see you on here again!

Always suspected someone in Brian's organisation dictates to the sound crew that this should happen.  That person is wrong to do so in my book.