Cole at the Controls

Perched behind the massive console in the audio booth of NBC's Studio No. 4 in Burbank, Calif., Sound Engineer Bill Cole looked a little like an octopus playing the organ. As Singer Andy Williams eased into the opening bars of an up-tempo number, Cole scanned a bewildering battery of gauges and began twiddling and tweaking some of the console's 250 multicolored knobs and switches that are linked to a forest of microphones in the studio. One knob channeled Williams' voice through an echo chamber; others-muffled or brightened various sections of the orchestra. The drums alone were surrounded by four microphones through which Cole, by deftly manipulating tone and volume controls, accented certain phrases or kept the brass from overpowering the beat.

Unfortunately, all this expert attention was about as helpful as pouring a magnum of champagne into a thimble, because most of the hi-fi sound that Cole created for next week's Andy Williams special will be wasted when it is fed through the nation's strictly lo-fi TV sets. The unhappy fact is that, to keep prices competitive, most TV units are equipped with 4-in., $1.50 speakers, which have all the fidelity of a string stretched between two tin cans. Nonetheless, as Cole forever demonstrates in the specials he engineers for such headliners as Williams, Frank Sinatra and Petula Clark, enough of his expertise still filters through to make him the best sound man in TV.

Sympathetic Strings. It is an honor without much glory. In an industry devoted to the visual, his contribution is almost academic. Most major programs employ legions of assistant directors and cameramen, but Cole labors alone in the isolation of the sound booth, grappling with problems such as how to ceep the sympathetic strings of a sitar Tom vibrating to the twangs of a nearby banjo. What makes many talented audio engineers defect to the technical haven of the recording companies is the frustrating acoustical conditions of the TV studios. Aswarm with crewmen, performers, musicians, cameras, cables, dollies, cranes, lights and scenery, the studios are about as compatible to quality sound reproduction as the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. would be.

The result is that much of the sound on TV has just barely advanced beyond the age of the wireless. Given the tinny speakers in TV sets, producers feel that it is futile to sink money into new studio sound equipment. TV manufacturers argue that a set with a quality sound system would double the size as well as the price of a unit. Besides they say, most people are so indifferent to sound that they are not even aware that many sets have tone-control knobs Still, the fact that thousands of viewers also own high-powered stereo rig: suggests that they may well object to the feedback, spotty pickups or imbalances that occur when Carol Burnett drowns out Jack Jones in a duet, or the band on The Ed Sullivan Show blasts through a crooner's ballad. To compensate, about one-third of the singers on TV practice "lip sync"--mouthing the lyrics to a prerecorded sound track. But this leads to such unnatural sights as lips out of gear or Joey Heatherton dancing frantically and singing sweetly while her chest heaves like a half-miler's.

Corners & Quirks. To Bill Cole, such problems exist only to be solved. To minimize background noise, he built a device he calls a "sound gate," which automatically turns off the microphones between lines of dialogue or pauses in the music. Other equipment, such as a volume-boosting compressor-amplifier, he purchased with his own money. "If you have good pictures," he says, "you want to send out good sound to go with them."

That he succeeds is indicated by the fact that most of the top singers on NBC, as well as those involved in independent productions, will not sing a note without Cole at the controls. Recently, when Fred Astaire learned that Cole was tied up with the Jerry Lewis Show, he altered the schedule of his special so that he could take advantage of the sound man's skills. In return, Cole delivered a sound track that was warm, balanced and enveloping without resorting to a Grand Canyon echo-chamber effect. For his sound engineering on the program, Cole has been nominated for his third TV Emmy Award (he got his first Emmy for his work last year in a Sinatra special).

Now 49, Cole has resisted offers to increase his $20,000 NBC income by becoming an independent sound consultant. Gesturing vaguely at his console, he says: "I helped plan and design this equipment. I know exactly what it can do and what I can do with it. I know all the corners and the quirks of these stages. I'm happy here--there's no sense going looking for something else."

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