Audio veterans explain their personal preferences to achieve specific goals
The microphone should have made a good balanced knife for the A1 Jim Bowie 150 years ago: a personal choice based on technical and aesthetic considerations, but also a practical choice that allows you to shape the world as you see it. Despite the truckloads of sound majors — most of the sound recording used for broadcast sports is guns and lavs — there’s still plenty of room for personal preference, which makes a surprising difference in how the show sounds.
On the trap and on the court
Controller A1 Dave Grundtvig deploys studio-grade microphones for broadcast sports.
“Throwing a ball is no different than hitting a snare drum,” he says. Dave Grundtvig, controlling the A1 for Turner Sports MBB and NBA games, naming the Shure SM81 the go-to mic for on-air sports. “As I always see, the audience for an event is no different than the audience for a music recording. You want to give them the same experience you get in the studio, so I bring studio-grade microphones for broadcast applications.
He used the SM81 in stacks as multiple sound-recording microphones or as pickups for more temporary sounds: for NBA games, for example, at floor level for the screams of sneakers and soccer balls, scorers and announcers’ tables, or on the backboards. Even if the microphone is 7-in, it’s put them into parabs on NFL sidelines. Length. All told, the SM81’s remarkably flat frequency response is in pursuit. (The manufacturer’s response graph varies by only one decibel at any point from 50 Hz to 16 kHz, and the response is fairly dominant in the 5-kHz to 10-kHz range.)
Overcharging for a sports channel? Unlike Grundtvig, he notes that televised sports tend toward more critical audience areas, such as immersive audio, where viewers can clearly select individual effects. Every ingredient needs to be nice and clear before you get to the mix. That’s why this is my mic.”
level consistency
“When a level-consistent stereo image is important, like a 50-yard-line center crowd mic or a basketball floor mic, I like the Shure VP88,” he explains. Chris LewisFeaturing mixed sports audio for ESPN, NBC Sports and CBS Sports and Red Sox, Phillies, 76ers, Nets and Panthers games. “It’s something I can leave out rather than the single point 416 that standard washing usually creates.
“You can also play with the M/S feature if you want and have the time and board space,” he continues, referring to the microphone’s internal mid-side matrix with three settings for different levels of stereo-image separation. “The center-side technique is great for a front-row-seat mic center court or the 50-yard line and more. You get all the action from the front and sides with controlled ambience. I’ve tried every stereo configuration known, but, in broadcast, most are XY or blank.” They use pairs because it’s probably easier. I find it hard to use XY because it’s hard to figure out where the capsules are, to align them properly under normal conditions. You’re going to get cancellations anyway. Also, I’m not out most of the time with setups; it’s up to A2 knowledge base to get good placement. With VP88, It’s easy because you just place it next to your source and select the center. You need three channels on the console: one mono for the center and one stereo on the side. Flipping one off the level gives you a perfect picture and it folds nicely into mono.
Lewis says level consistency is a constant concern for SFX on sports programming.
“For arena games, it’s the level of class that I always look for,” he explained. “For example, if I’m mixing an MLS game, there might be 16-20 mics on the field. If I get it all, it’s soup. I have to be careful and cautious about where and when the microphone comes out. If I mix it up in the zones where the game takes place, each zone needs its own level correlation. And the best way to find out if it’s on its own level is to use an absolute-level method like mid-side. The VP88’s stereo function is also phase-accurate, so you can’t go wrong. I use the mode when I want a more focused sound to lock the display action; Stereo sound is very spacious, which works best for crowds, supporting rooms or bands.
Abyssinic sounds
“Most of my work is immersive sound, so I like to use a lot of ambisonic microphones to capture a dimensional sound base,” he says. Dennis BaxterSound designer for sports broadcasting and immersive sound production and instruction. While you don’t have to use an ambisonic microphone to create immersive sound, I am using Sennheiser Ambeo and Zylia ZM 1 microphones.
Veteran sound designer Dennis Baxter, who works primarily in immersive sound, deploys multiple ambisonic mics for a scaled sound base.
Ambisonic microphones are a compact solution for broadcasting and can capture a sound field of impressive size, but ambisonic microphones – especially low-order ones – tend to occupy only a limited portion of the sound field and require multiple microphones and positions to adequately capture an event.
“For example,” Baxter explained, “a microphone near home plate, first and third base will cover the atmosphere of the venue, and any sound near the base will add a nice layer of sound to your mix.”
Both microphones can be found for around $1,500, which should make them affordable for sports products, and, the Sennheiser Ambeo microphone can connect directly to Solid State Logic System T mixing consoles, which alleviates some workflow concerns. Zilia is a 3rd-order ambisonic microphone using 21 MEMS transducers.
“Currently, a third-party microphone requires a laptop,” says Baxter, “but Zelia is working on a model for sports applications with minimal latency. I have a chapter in my new book on immersive-audio microphone techniques; Immersive Sound Production, A Practical Guide With Focal Press.
