At the debates on Monday, Donald complained that his mic wasn’t working.
“My microphone ― in the room they couldn’t hear me,” the GOP nominee told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” in a Tuesday phone interview. “You know it was going on and off which isn’t exactly great.”
“I wonder if it was set up that way,” he added. “It was terrible.”
Trump recalled having no problem with the microphone during the sound test an hour before the debate, which led him to believe something sinister might have been done in the interim.
“It was on and off and it was much lower than hers,” he said, referring to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories of course but it was much lower than hers and it was crackling.”
On the other hand, this is what Trump said about the Pensacola, Florida rally in January.
And by the way, I don’t like this mic. Whoever the hell brought this mic system, don’t pay the son of a bitch who brought it in. I’ll tell ya, these people. No, this mic is terrible. Stupid mic keeps popping! Do you hear that, GEORGE? Don’t pay ’em. Don’t pay ’em! You know, I believe in paying. But when somebody does a bad job, like this stupid mic, you shouldn’t pay the bastard. Terrible. Terrible! It’s true.
So why is Trump having so many sound problems?
Trump doesn’t know how to use a microphone. He screams into it. He mutters. He rambles and doesn’t project through to the end of the sentence. He grabs the mic too high up, making it feed back. (Choking the chicken.) What he lacks in coherence he makes up for in volume. In other words, a sound guy’s worst nightmare.
From the comments on Donald Trump Hates This Stupid Mic via Zippy the Pinhead:
FWIW I've gotten an update through the grapevine on this story. First- the sound company (Sound Associates, a very reputable, long established company) did get paid, for all of Teh Donald's bluster and noise he paid the bill. Second, the company didn't give a shit about Trump's temper tantrum, nor did the board op get in any trouble at all. Third, the mic choice and everything else that day was all per spec from the Trump campaign. They spec'd the Shure MX, they said only one (SOP is to use a pair taped together to give slightly wider coverage and more importantly, redundancy- see: the debates) and the campaign did not spec any sort of wired or wireless backup. Trump did indeed blow out the diaphragm on the mic by shouting into it - no lectern mic can stand up to that sort of abuse. The board op most certainly did not sabotage the event or through any negligence cause the problem. Like I said, that particular company has been around forever and has a sterling reputation. This was just a garden variety case of a client being a complete fucking asshole and getting their just desserts when karma bites them in the ass.
Clarification: if the diaphragm had been blown out, the mic would have stopped working. What was actually going on was that he was shouting into the microphone, and it was clipping. Clipping is when the volume exceeds the design specifications of the device. It’s a little like when you turn your stereo up really loud and your speakers sound like crap.
Fast forward to the September debates.
The two candidates sounded very different. Clinton’s mic had plenty of high end, low end, not too much mid — she sounded natural and like herself. Trump’s mic, on the other hand, was resonant but boomy, and seemed to catch every breath of air and every sniffle.
This is what happens when somebody is forced to put a compressor on your microphone because you keep SHOUTING into it. It sounds boomy because it’s compressing Donald’s volume into a specific range. If he goes over that range, the mic will sound like it’s cutting out. It’s not, it’s just not getting any louder. This is also why every sniffle and breath was amplified. The compressor takes low-volume sounds that would ordinarily be excluded and amplifies them.
For a good example of that in popular music, I give you that annoying song from the Cranberries.
She’s not hyperventilating, she’s singing very softly and has the microphone on a compressor so that all those little gasps are amplified. The way to avoid that is to put the microphone six feet above your head, but that’s a whole other diary.
No wonder Donald thought there was something wrong with his mic. His debate style seems to be shout louder than the other guy. Just imagine what the debate would have been like if they hadn’t done that. I was already outraged at the amount of interruptions and interjections.
But let’s get down to it. As Hillary said, “Anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a good night.”
EDIT: for those who say he was sniffing, yes, of course he was sniffing. Everybody sniffs. You breathe or you pass out from lack of air. What’s important to remember is that your average sound guy has the sound system set up to exclude breathing, clothing rustling, gasps, sniffing, all the normal noises that a person makes when talking. They were able to do this for Hillary’s mic, because she doesn’t shout. Trump is a challenge.
