Among the artists like Paul McCartney, Adele, Cold Play, Rihanna and Bruce Springsteen who will appear at music’s biggest night next Saturday, Feb. 12 is a Chicago celebrity.
In this particular instance, renowned audio expert Hank Neuberger
of Springboard Productions is probably one of the most important persons on the show. For the 23rd year, he will be the supervisor of broadcast audio for the 53rd Grammy Awards, at the L.A. Staples Center, where several hundred nominees are competing for top honors in a staggering 78 categories.
Neuberger supervises all the crew and equipment that balances and mixes the audio for the CBS telecast. “My focus is the sound that goes into the homes of the millions of people watching the show,” he says.
“We have a dialog with CBS so we are calibrated to current standards and we can monitor the best way you can hear the show in your home, in 5.1 Surround or stereo.
Neuberger got involved in the show back in 1987, when audio became more challenging and the Grammy show got bigger and the artists’ audio more complex.
The late Murray Allen, founder/president/master mixer of legendary Universal Recording Studios and an early NARAS member, was the only one watching, relates Neuberger. “He was asked by the NARAS chairman to straighten it all out and he brought me in to assist.
“We had multiple trucks to balance all the acts but we couldn’t get it down in one truck, all on one recording console. We still don’t have enough time in the day to everything we need to do,” but incredibly, it gets done, as it has every year since Neuberger has been in charge.
“We balance nearly 1,000 inputs in the three-hour show. The people who work on a lot of live television shows all concur that this is the most challenging show on television,” he says.
From the Grammy show, Neuberger dives into the music festival season. He is the broadcast audio superior for the three biggest music events in the country: the already sold-out Coachella in April in Indio, California, Lollapalooza in Chicago in August and Austin City Limits in October. They are all video webcasts that are broadcast live in real time on YouTube.
“I’m fortunate to have changed with some it,” Neuberger philosophizes, “and as much as I can handle for the rest of it.”
Neuberger was NARAS chairman, 1994-1996 and board chairman of the Grammys’ MusicCares Foundation, 2002-2005. He won an Emmy for Outstanding Sound Mixing for the Grammy show’s 5.1 Surround broadcast.
