Fake Crowd Noise or Silent?
Happy Friday everyone!
Now that we are a year into the pandemic, I just thought I'd ask about this because I am genuinely curious.
Do you guys prefer hearing the sound track of the fake fans on loop? Or would you rather hear the sounds of the game and have it be basically quiet?
I am not sure if anyone else on this board is experiencing what I am. When I watch the games with the fake noise, my brain trains myself to recognize when the tape goes on loop and it's actually giving me a bit of a migraine. I watched the replay on the treadmill this morning and I honestly almost had to stop working out from hearing the looped sound.
I would imagine that these networks are curious about little kids watching the games and hearing bad words, but honestly, who cares?
February 19th, 2021 at 9:36 AM ^
much like the wizard of oz, i prefer silence!
incidentally, what we really should do is put a big screen behind each basket and when the opposing team is shooting at it, have him pop up....
February 19th, 2021 at 9:40 AM ^
The canned crowd noise reminds me of the vuvuzelas (sp?) during the World Cup. Made it unwatchable with sound up. I’ll listen to sneaker squeaks and bench noise all day rather than what they do at Crisler.
February 19th, 2021 at 9:42 AM ^
Silence!
Look, I understand that it's tough to have players audible on mic, because I've got kids watching and I don't want them hearing a lot of the stuff you hear on a playing field/court when young men are competing.
But get out the mute button and let us hear everything else.
Imagine you were at the local high school after hours, perhaps picking up your kid from a school activity. And you see the lights on in the gym, and you peek in.... and there are NBA players laid up due to a travel issue, playing a pickup game. Just them. And you standing in the corner. You stay and watch, because it's just you and the guys in the gym.
And it's amazing. You see incredible athleticism and it blows you away. But you *hear* what is happening on the court. The trash talk. The laughter. The professional respect. The frustration of a guy who misses a good shot, the triumph of a huge block, the joy of a well-crafted play that ends in a thunderdunk.
You'd remember it forever. And you'd remember the sounds you heard as much as anything.
One of the most perplexing decisions, to me, during this period of sports, is the decision by various producers to try to pipe in fake noise when the games themselves produce noise that people are interested in. People love mic'd up clips, NFL films audio, etc. Movies about sports zero in on the great sounds the games produce.
What an excellent opportunity to hear all of them. Yeah, it's better with real crowd noise, but there aren't real crowds. So lean into the "difference" and give us a novel experience. Let us hear more of the barking of coaches and the grunting of linemen. Let us hear more of the squeaks of sneakers. They're piping noise into hockey games... and for what? The sounds of hockey being played, from the skates on the ice to the crumpling checks into the boards to the magical sound of a stick striking a puck that are incredible to experience. Let us hear them!
One of the great parts of attending sporting events is the sensory experience and a significant factor in that is the sound. Yes, part of that sound is the crowd. But it's also the crack of the bat in baseball.
We can't have crowds. It's too bad. Let us experience the sounds of the game.
February 19th, 2021 at 10:02 AM ^
I will absolutely not pretend like I know anything about parenting, because I don't.
But at the end of the day, curse words are just curse words- our world has given them arbitrary meaning when they really don't "mean" anything. Kids are going to get exposed to that type of language no matter where they go or what they do- I feel it's so hard to shelter them from that.
I am pretty confident in speculating that one of the big reasons these companies are doing the piped in noise is so the younger audience doesn't hear stuff. But no matter what, even when crowds are at full roar, you can hear players swear and coaches swear, etc. It's just part of the fabric of sports. I'd rather get the full, authentic experience and hear everything.
February 19th, 2021 at 11:34 AM ^
You’re right, you don’t know anything about parenting. Words have meaning beyond what you think is arbitrary. Every parent has experienced children that are finicky eaters, but no parent ever wants to hear “This shit is awful, fuck this I’m outta here”.
You should test out your arbitrary meaning theory in a courtroom. And I think you’re probably the only one who is getting a migraine from something, that for me, is really insignificant.
February 19th, 2021 at 11:43 AM ^
I had a long response typed out, but don't feel like getting into it- in a good mood, it's Friday.
Thanks for your input.
February 19th, 2021 at 10:07 AM ^
I'd go for the quiet. Takes me back to playing/practicing hoops in empty gyms
February 19th, 2021 at 10:12 AM ^
Not a fan of the fake crowd noise, but I was liking the loud-ish EDM during timeouts at Crisler last night.
February 19th, 2021 at 10:15 AM ^
I do like the "and 1" that almost all the guys yell when they drive the lane. I am sure that happened before but it is really clear now.
February 19th, 2021 at 11:12 AM ^
I was just thinking the same thing - it's literally every play at the rim. Kind of like in Golf when the ball is rolling toward the cup and you get the guy yelling "get in the hole" every single time.
February 19th, 2021 at 10:16 AM ^
You couldn't hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.
February 19th, 2021 at 10:54 AM ^
Silent. I used to love when Ernie Harwell would go into one of his magical silence spells and you would hear hot dog vendors, the low murmur of an often small crowd, and then sometimes the crack of the bat would break the silence. The best part of enjoying any sport as a spectator IMO is getting as close to it as you can without distractions. The real product is on the diamond, field, court, or ice.
February 19th, 2021 at 10:58 AM ^
Fake crowd noise.
February 19th, 2021 at 11:04 AM ^
In a day and age where almost all of us are streaming everything, I don't understand why we can't do two things.
A) Choose whether or not we want to hear the fake noise and
B) Choose whether or not we want the announcers.
I know the announcers do ad reads but, okay fine, if I choose no announcers, make me watch an ad first or keep an ad graphic on the screen during the game -- I'll live.
February 19th, 2021 at 11:04 AM ^
The fake crowd noise wouldn't be so bad if they turned the track volume down a bit. I feel like they crank the volume up WAY to far and it becomes distracting. That being said, I'd be fine with the silence too.
February 19th, 2021 at 11:42 AM ^
Hate it.
NBC's NHL coverage has now taken to putting vuvuzelas honking in the background even though there isn't a soul in the stands.
February 19th, 2021 at 11:46 AM ^
How about neither? How about *gasp* REAL crowd noise from fans actually IN the stadia? It’ll be ok.
February 19th, 2021 at 1:20 PM ^
Someone ring the epidemiologists, they're doing it all wrong! Only Sten knows the truth.
February 19th, 2021 at 12:16 PM ^
I don’t like it. It’s really bad when it doesn’t make sense. For example, they would have me believe that Breslin was rocking when MSU was trailing Iowa by 30 in the second half. The only fake noise they should be playing at that time is crickets.
February 19th, 2021 at 12:16 PM ^
I want real crowd noise.
February 19th, 2021 at 1:21 PM ^
*sigh*
we all do.
February 19th, 2021 at 3:03 PM ^
Just the sounds of the game please. It's like a canned laugh track, annoying as hell.
February 19th, 2021 at 5:06 PM ^
For my birthday (a big one) I bought a pretty kick-ass surround sound/home theater. I was watching a football game shortly after I got it and was blown away by how the surround sound in game mode made me feel like I was in the stadium. ...and then I realize that no one was actually in the stadium and that the crowd noise was pumped in.
February 20th, 2021 at 2:48 PM ^
The announcing had gotten so bad, and I always muted commercials anyway, that I started turning the sound off for sporting events about ten years ago.
Artificial noise feels like when they started making the puck glow during NHL games (thankfully, that lasted less than a season).
Maybe they could solve the swearing athlete issue by putting one of those new contact-less credit card readers next to the court. Every time you use a bad word, it costs you $1,000.