Getting your studio audio ready for the darker months ahead

Mid autumn is when most studios settle into their heaviest stretch of the year. Bulletins run longer, entertainment schedules fill up, and the evenings draw in, which means more shows recorded and transmitted after dark. Audio teams feel this first, because a sound set-up that was good enough for a quiet summer rarely survives a crowded timetable without small repairs.

I have spent the past few weeks speaking with crews who find the same thing each year: a microphone that has gone missing from the rack, a desk that was left in the last engineer's preferred state, a talkback channel nobody can quite explain. None of it is dramatic, but all of it costs minutes at the start of a session.

The aim of this note is modest. It is a seasonal tidy-up for sound management, done before the schedule gets tight, so that your team spends the winter repeating good results instead of rebuilding them.

Begin with a plain count. Walk the racks and cupboards and list each microphone by type, serial number and where it normally lives. Radio packs, handhelds, lavaliers and the boom and stand kit all belong on the same list. Studios are often surprised by how many items turn out to be on loan to another department or sitting in a flight case since the summer.

Next, test each one. Plug it in, listen for crackle, check the capsule for damage, and note the condition honestly. Cold weather and heated buildings make connectors and cables behave differently, so autumn is a sensible time to catch faults before they surface live.

Record what you find against each item, including repairs needed and who is handling them. A booking calendar then shows the audio team which microphones are genuinely available for a given show, rather than which ones they hope are.

• Count every microphone, pack and stand, and note where each one is kept
• Test capsules, connectors and cables, and log the condition of each
• Mark items needing repair so nobody books them by mistake
• Check spare batteries and charging points for radio packs

A mixing desk holds a surprising amount of knowledge in its faders and knobs, and most of it disappears the moment someone resets the surface. Before the winter schedule begins, save the desk state for each regular show and write the key choices in plain words alongside it: input assignments, gain levels at the start of rehearsal, equalisation on the presenter microphones, and any compression applied to the newsdesk.

This is not about fixing a sound in place forever. It is about giving the next engineer a starting point they can trust. When two people share a gallery across a week of bulletins, a written baseline lets either of them arrive, load the settings and begin from the same place.

Keep a short note of what changed and why after each show. Over a few weeks, those notes show you which adjustments are routine and which were one-off responses to a particular guest or set.

Talkback is the quietest part of an audio set-up and the one that causes the loudest problems. A floor manager who cannot hear the gallery, or a presenter who hears the wrong channel in their earpiece, can unsettle a whole programme. Autumn changes often bring new crew, freelancers and trainees, so assumptions about who is on which channel need checking again.

Draw up a simple channel map for each studio: which groups hear which feeds, who can speak to whom, and how the director reaches the floor in an emergency. Pin it where the whole team can see it, and keep the same version in the shared planning space.

Then test it with a short run before the first show of the day. Two minutes of checking each earpiece and belt pack is cheap compared with a live programme that starts with a confused floor.

• Map every talkback channel and say who hears what
• Test each earpiece and belt pack before the first show
• Keep one agreed version of the map, dated and shared

Autumn brings damp mornings, heating that comes on unevenly, and doors that are opened more often to let crews in and out. These small shifts affect sound in ways people forget. A studio that runs warm in one corner can make condenser microphones behave differently, and a draughty loading area can add rumble to anything recorded near it.

Spend a session listening to the empty room at the times your shows actually run. Note any hum from new heating or ventilation, and mention it to whoever looks after the building. Where a noise cannot be removed, record where it is and which positions are best avoided.

Take the same care with cable runs across floors. Wet footwear and trailing leads are a trip risk and a source of damaged connectors. A tidy, labelled route saves both time and kit.

Once the stock is counted, the desk settings are written down and the talkback is mapped, the last step is a routine your team can run in the same order every time. Keep it short enough to fit on one sheet: collect the microphones booked for the show, load the desk state, check talkback, run a level test with the presenter, and sign off.

The value of a routine is that it takes judgement out of the dull parts, leaving engineers free to listen properly and respond to what the show needs. New starters learn faster, and experienced hands spot problems sooner because everything else is familiar.

Review the sheet after a few weeks. Remove steps that nobody needs, add the check that kept catching people out, and date each version so the whole crew works from the current one.