Small Changes Make Substantial Differences in NFL Audio Nimble parabs, additional A2s help the sound keep up this season By Dan Daley, Audio Editor Wednesday, October 5, 2022 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The NFL stadium crowds are back everywhere, all the time now, in a sports milieu that demands more sound, louder sound, and more sources than ever. Broadcasters' football A1s understand that the sport may be the most restrictive when it comes to access to sound sources - the league has always retained control of and access to the two player microphones on the field, a cornerstone of the sport's audio on television for a decade - but that has only made their pursuit of the rest of gridiron sound that much more intense and interesting. That has certainly continued this season.
Parabs to the Rescue At Fox Sports, lead A1 Jamie McCombs, like all football mixers, is still dealing with the loss of 20 yards of sideline real estate for his parab operators: a COVID protocol put in place by the league last year limits the movements of up to two operators per side to the area from the end zone to the 25-yard line, instead of to the 35-yard line. To compensate, he notes, submixer Eddie Verstraete has been experimenting with new microphones in the parabolic collectors - currently, a Neumann - attached to the new crossbars that parab manufacturer Klover came up with this year for its Mik 26 model. (The updated unit, currently in a beta-type stage, has stronger handles, and parts are modular to better facilitate field repairs. According to Klover President Paul Terpstra, the modification was first tested by Fox Sports during the USFL season and will be evaluated this NFL season by CBS Sports.)
A1 Jamie McCombs: It's loud, but we're really enjoying the noise.
Losing those extra sideline yards last year was tough, says McCombs. What helps is experimenting with the reach of the parabs themselves, and the NFL's enhanced audio from the microphones on the players, which is still great sound.
As per the collective-bargaining agreement between the league and the NFLPA, microphones can be placed on either a guard or the starting and backup center for each game. Fox Sports is going with six parabs this season: four on the sidelines, two in the end zones.
McCombs also notes the growing amount of Dante signal transport at games. The network is used for all RF sources, including the Shure Axient wireless microphones and the RF mics in the parabs. Most recently, its use has been extended to bringing in the voice of rules analyst Mike Pereira from Fox Sports' Los Angeles studios to any game he's needed on. His intercom and IFB are on a Unity IT-based comms system to production and from there on Dante to distribution.
We've been using Dante for two years now, and [Game Creek Video] Encore just upgraded to accommodate more Dante capability to the console, McCombs explains. We're still using Hydra networking, such as to the announce booth, but less and less of it over time as more and more Dante goes out into the field.
A2s Bring Experience to Parabolic Mics ESPN implemented a subtle but significant audio change this season when it agreed to supply two A2s as parab operators, replacing two of the four utility personnel previously assigned to four parabs per game. Jonathan Freed - one of two A1s, along with Scott Pray, for the broadcaster's flagship Monday Night Football production - says addition of the more experienced and technically capable A2s helps improve the overall audio experience with technicians who are better aware of game nuances and can better leverage the capabilities and potential of the parabs. Utility workers, as their rubric suggests, are usually relied on for such tasks as cable management behind cameras and other semi-technical jobs.
A good, experienced A2 can anticipate action on the field, which helps the production flow, he says, noting that the new A2s are working the sideline parabs, the mics most affected by the loss of sideline space. They know how the equipment works and what it can do. From my perspective, the parab operator is as important to the A1 as the camera operator is to the director. We're very happy that we were able to help make this happen.
Skycam to the Rescue The loss of sideline real estate for parabs has put an even greater premium on the Skycam, with Freed and other A1s increasingly relying on it for audio-gathering. Starting several years ago, Freed worked with the Skycam team on integrating the Schoeps SuperCMIT digital microphone aboard the unit. The mic's integrated DSP detects discrete sound from different directions while also recognizing diffuse field sound from all directions, similar to the effect produced by a shotgun mic. The algorithm is designed to suppress diffuse sound and to focus on discrete sound, giving it the capability of covering as much of the field as the camera itself while rejecting crowd noise.
But, adds Freed, the mic's digital nature means A1s can remotely access parameters - capsule gain, filtering - from the console through the SuperCMIT's digital phantom-power infrastructure. In addition, the audio signal is embedded as an AES-3 format with that of the camera and can be de-embedded and sent discretely over fiber to the A1 console.
He says, It's a fantastic improvement over the RF microphones that we used to pair with the Skycam.
Back to Loud What all NFL A1s are sharing this season is volume, with the stadiums returning to full capacity for every game. At Seattle's open-top Lumen Field, Freed measured the Broncos-Seahawks game in Week 1 at 104 dB. He notes that, to prevent overloads, he has been lowering the input gain slightly on crowd mics. It's not unexpected, and it can be challenging trying to capture all the
