Can We Get the PA Fixed Before Tulsa?

Side.Show.Joe · September 25

The PA is so loud it drowns out everything. The band can't even be heard. At the Wyoming game the student section tried to get the "North" "Texas" chant started, but the PA killed it. 27,000 fans (okay, maybe 24,000) didn't get to enjoy the full game experience. When are fans have the opportunity to get loud they can get very loud. See "the Stand" against Rice. Or the North Texas chant against UTEP. We need that level of fan engagement at our games, not an overly loud PA.

Edited September 25 by Side.Show.Joe

greenjoe · September 25

Lose the DJ.

MeanGreen22 · September 25

Band was pretty loud to me. The bigger issue is gameday ops trying to force the NORTH! TEXAS! chant. It's better as an organic chant. Plus, they werent even directing which side says what. Idk why its so hard for them to understand that.

BigWillie · September 25

As another complaint about the sound system, it looks so bush league when you can't hear the ref on penalties or there is feedback. How hard is this to test before game time?

I am no sound engineer, but concerts get this right. Like any other performance.

Any sound engineering alum that can explain it?

Edited September 25 by BigWillie

Glory to the Green · September 25

42 minutes ago, Side.Show.Joe said:

the Wyoming game the student section tried to get the "North" "Texas" chant started, but the PA killed it. 27,000 fans

I love their spirit, man. They tried the SFA game, too.

RBP79 · September 25

When I see children wearing noise eliminating headphones on ..maybe there is a problem?

.

Edited September 26 by RBP79

golfingomez · September 25

49 minutes ago, BigWillie said:

As another complaint about the sound system, it looks so bush league when you can't hear the ref on penalties or there is feedback. How hard is this to test before game time?

Since day one at Apogee...

ntmeangreen11 · September 26

2 hours ago, MeanGreen22 said:

Band was pretty loud to me. The bigger issue is gameday ops trying to force the NORTH! TEXAS! chant. It's better as an organic chant. Plus, they werent even directing which side says what. Idk why its so hard for them to understand that.

Agreed that was awful, they used to have cheerleaders on each side with north and Texas signs to start it that’s way better.

Udomann · September 26

Took my daughter to a fireworks show years back. Had to leave early because the music was too loud and painful. This absolutely needs to be addressed because she won't go back after that

Hookset · September 26

5 hours ago, MeanGreen22 said:

Plus, they werent even directing which side says what. Idk why it’s so hard for them to understand that.

This!!! East side North! West side Texas!
Then go!

blg green eagle man · September 26

I have had season tickets from Fouts and mow Apogee and that is one of the few things which bug me is the loud music( needs different music) and not á loud. I otherwise enjoy going to the games. Maybe if enough of us complain it will change

cogido · September 26

I complained about all of the above in the game experience survey I received this week. Every item. But I’ve done so before and nothing ever happens. Someone has their heels dug in or they aren’t listening.

emmitt01 · September 26

Agreed, why can't they turn down the volume and play some music that EVERYBODY loves??

dancing with the stars dwts GIF

meaniegreenie · September 26

We need to stop complaining on here and complain to the people that have control over it.
I've intended to send a message to point out the good and the bad things, but I'm just as guilty as anybody for not following through since I already mentioned this earlier in the week and I still haven't done it.

Others mentioned using social media which would be appropriate for complaints like this, but not everything is needed to be broadcast on the "public square". There's some things that I don't necessarily feel like publicly discussing and not because it's anything controversial, but I just don't want a public discussion on it.

email: Athletic.Director@unt.edu

Edit: I missed Cogido's post saying that he mentioned it in the survey.

Edited September 26 by meaniegreenie

KingDL1 · September 26

The feedback from the PA and the Ref mics is awful at times. It's only been that way for 15 years. I guess they don't care.

meaniegreenie · September 26

Okay, I've done my attempt. Sent the following. Maby others can do so as well or hit Twitter with something similar.

Quote

Can we please TURN DOWN the volume on the audio during the games, especially the music?

It is ruining the game experience for many of us because not only is it painfully loud, but it makes it impossible to speak to the person sitting right next to you and often drowns out the band. Even worse, the loudness and timing of the music has caused disruptions to the natural crowd noise, i.e. when the students started a NORTH---TEXAS chant, the PA system drowned it out and killed it.

Speaking of the chant, the attempts at leading an artificial chant are embarrassing. If we are going to actively do this, then it needs to be done consistently and well led, i.e. make it a tradition to do it at the start of the 4th quarter. And whoever is leading it needs to SLOW DOWN and let the crowd get into the flow.

I've got other good and bad points that I intend to report but don't have time right now and I wanted to get this message sent ASAP in order to possibly get something done before Saturday's game.

Thank you.

Green Otaku · September 26

17 hours ago, BigWillie said:

As another complaint about the sound system, it looks so bush league when you can't hear the ref on penalties or there is feedback. How hard is this to test before game time?

I am no sound engineer, but concerts get this right. Like any other performance.

Any sound engineering alum that can explain it?

27 minutes ago, KingDL1 said:

The feedback from the PA and the Ref mics is awful at times. It's only been that way for 15 years. I guess they don't care.

Concert have the highest quality equipment since that's the main feature of the show, they can't afford to have bad audio. They also have more control with placement, putting the speaker line in front of the microphones so they aren't looping back into the mics to create feedback.

It could just be the audio equipment at DATCU isn't the highest quality. Maybe the wireless signal isn't strong enough with so many people in the stadium, it could be the mic placement on the ref being poor, it could be the person running the board isn't mitigating the frequencies to prevent feedback, or it could be that the system isn't tuned properly for the environment. It's hard to know without knowing what they use, how it's set up, and how it's run.

meaniegreenie · September 26

5 minutes ago, Green Otaku said:

Concert have the highest quality equipment since that's the main feature of the show, they can't afford to have bad audio. They also have more control with placement, putting the speaker line in front of the microphones so they aren't looping back into the mics to create feedback.

It could just be the audio equipment at DATCU isn't the highest quality. Maybe the wireless signal isn't strong enough with so many people in the stadium, it could be the mic placement on the ref being poor, it could be the person running the board isn't mitigating the frequencies to prevent feedback, or it could be that the system isn't tuned properly for the environment. It's hard to know without knowing what they use, how it's set up, and how it's run.

All of that is valid. But we're there to watch a football game with friends, not go to a concert.

Making adjustments, etc. is appropriate, but getting a ref's mic working isn't rocket science and it's been bad since the stadium opened. The only things I can think of that are unique to our stadium are the wind turbines in close proximity and the LEED certification. Of these, I suspect only the turbines could affect RF and I doubt they are doing anything to interfere with the mics.

Green Otaku · September 26

10 minutes ago, meaniegreenie said:

All of that is valid. But we're there to watch a football game with friends, not go to a concert.

I'm not sure what this means. I was answering BigWillie's question about how concerts get the audio right.

14 minutes ago, meaniegreenie said:

Making adjustments, etc. is appropriate, but getting a ref's mic working isn't rocket science and it's been bad since the stadium opened. The only things I can think of that are unique to our stadium are the wind turbines in close proximity and the LEED certification. Of these, I suspect only the turbines could affect RF and I doubt they are doing anything to interfere with the mics.

What is your experience with running live sound?

southsideguy · September 26

plus dont show the previous stats from the pervious game. Cant that be check prior to the game starting. I am thinking of buying some noise canceling headphones.

meaniegreenie · September 26

4 hours ago, Green Otaku said:

I'm not sure what this means. I was answering BigWillie's question about how concerts get the audio right.

What is your experience with running live sound?

That's why I said your point was valid.

I don't have much experience with live sound, I'm pretty familiar with RF signals and I think I mistakenly took your statement about "mitigating frequencies" to mean external RF frequencies and not tuning the processed baseband signals. Similarly, I interpreted your point about not having the "highest quality equipment" to mean quality of sound reproduction, i.e. "concert quality", not simply the quality of the equipment to simply work.

But as I and others have said, the people running this have YEARS of experience in working with live sound (or at least they should), since they've supposedly been addressing it for nearly 15 years. So, it's either that they don't care about fixing it or there is some unique situation that is making it difficult to address. That's why I brought up the point regarding the only things that I could think of that are unique to our environment.

flyonthewall · September 26

I also notice that after the first 2 drives both teams had over 400 yards in offense. Meaning they didn't bother to clear the computer since the last game. Some of this stuff is so laughable. I asked someone yesterday in the a.d. "does anyone have a checklist of the 20 things they need to make sure work and run this thing on wednesday". The answer was a shrug. Sometimes we just can't get past ourselves.

Glory to the Green · September 26

1 minute ago, flyonthewall said:

The answer was a shrug.

This should be such an easy fix. That’s a bit frustrating.

flyonthewall · September 26

honestly, I have become somewhat immune to all of this. I just try to make the experience great for everyone i am involved with. Not going to quit.

Andrew · September 26

On 9/25/2024 at 4:59 PM, Side.Show.Joe said:

The PA is so loud it drowns out everything. The band can't even be heard. At the Wyoming game the student section tried to get the "North" "Texas" chant started, but the PA killed it. 27,000 fans (okay, maybe 24,000) didn't get to enjoy the full game experience. When are fans have the opportunity to get loud they can get very loud. See "the Stand" against Rice. Or the North Texas chant against UTEP. We need that level of fan engagement at our games, not an overly loud PA.

1000% disagree. This will not only draw students, but it’s significantly better than any band can do. The players prefer the music as it fires them up. The DJ is on point and by far one of the best things about game day.