Company Owner Fred Vogler Relies on a Combo of New and Existing Sound Files Recorded with DPA's 4091 Omni Condenser and 4560 Binaural Mics and MMA-A Interface.
As with many things over the past year, the world of sports saw significant disruption to its regular routine. From halted or delayed seasons to little or no live audiences at the arenas, sporting events around the world had to operate differently. With no ambient sounds to enhance the broadcasts, television networks also had to find alternative ways to replicate the at-home viewers' experience. In response, Fred Vogler launched Sonofans, an immersive sports crowd performance system. The sound library was created using recordings captured with DPA Microphones' 4091 Omni Condenser Mic, 4560 Binaural Mic and MMA-A Digital Audio Interface.
Touted as a performance-based enhancement tool for empty stadiums or those with limited attendance restrictions, Sonofans provides live, dynamic crowd response with a library of reactions that have been mined and curated over the past 15 years. Included among these are sounds recorded during college football games using DPA's 4091 Small-Diaphragm Omni Condenser Microphone with Rycote windscreens, which Vogler installed atop mic stands elevated 15 feet above the ground.
Back in 2006, I was providing scrimmage and practice field noise for USC Football players, using crowd sounds that I had gathered during regular games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, explains Vogler. The coach at that time, Pete Carroll, liked what I was doing so much that he gave me field access to all the games they played that year. This included other stadiums in the Pac12, as well as at the Rose Bowl. I recorded all the crowd noise from each of those games using four DPA 4091 microphones placed around the stadiums.
Though Vogler says that experience was incredible in and of itself, he never imaged that those files would prove vital in the future. Over the past year, Vogler has utilized the sounds from the USC games to provide crowd enhancement for professional and collegiate baseball, soccer, boxing, football, basketball and bowling on one of the country's top sports networks.
I went back to those files and started to collate and mine sounds that I thought we could use for other sports, especially baseball, which became the foundation for launching Sonofans, adds Vogler. We created this enhanced crowd sound starting with the different levels of energy from those quad recordings back in 2006/2007. We had everything from a light crowd to a very excited crowd. Along the way, there are also a lot of reactions, cheers or disappointed boos. Fortunately, despite the age of the recordings, I had really high-quality sounds to work from for this project because I used DPA microphones.
While he used the USC soundbites as the basis for Sonofans, Vogler still had to find a way to capture and create sounds that differed from sport to sport. Boxing and bowling don't sound the same as football, baseball or basketball, so I needed to record additional audio, he says. To accomplish that, I went into smaller crowds like those visiting a park or a big box store and then used the audio as a basis for enhanced sounds.
John Root, regional sales manager, DPA, first introduced Vogler to the 4560 Binaural Microphone and MMA-A Digital Audio Interface. The low profile of the binaural headset mic enabled me to be in a small group or gathering of people and capture more genuine speech patterns and distinct sounds, says Vogler. I was able to interject those recordings into boxing and bowling matches, which have smaller, more individualized crowd voices compared to large stadiums. The mic, in combination with that mic pre, worked incredibly well.
In addition to utilizing the binaural recordings for the more intimate sports events, Vogler also blended the sounds into the arena-style games, like football and baseball. It works great for creating the authenticity and realism of a crowd, he explains.
Though much of the initial Sonofans files were based off Vogler's recordings, he also found himself weeding through the network's past broadcasts to cull chants specific to each stadium or team. The network has somebody who operates a trigger pad with reactions the cheers, claps, boos, etc. and then a mixer adds the bed of crowd sounds, like the chants, he explains. Interestingly, only the people at home are able to hear these sounds. While the players on the field have some audio piped in, they don't get the same experience as the broadcast viewers. It would be great to take that binaural microphone into a stadium to create an immersive experience for the coaches, players and managers that could also be blended into the live broadcast.
A recording engineer, mixer and sound designer, Vogler has worked on some of the industry's leading commercial recordings, including the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. As a longtime user of DPA microphones, Vogler says he continues to be impressed by the solutions they develop. I've been using their products for 25 years or so, and they've put out some really clever stuff over that time, he concludes. They're discreet and camera-friendly, but also get a good sound from everything.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
A poisoned spy, a secret war, and a small English city contaminated by a deadly chemical weapon. Available on Sky Documentaries from 4 AugustWednesday 22 July 2...
22/07/2026
Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement wi...
22/07/2026
Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership and Combine the Integration Platform and Managed Services
Flexible integration solutions for cloud, hybrid...
22/07/2026
RT REPORTS NET SURPLUS OF 22.5 MILLION IN 2025...
22/07/2026
In the Opinion of the Censor airs Monday 27 July at 9.35pm on RT One and RT Player
In the Opinion of the Censor looks at how films for theatrical release wer...
22/07/2026
Before a healthcare robot can be useful in the real world, it has to learn how the physical world pushes back. Anatomy varies. Instruments bend, press, slip and...
21/07/2026
New research involving a cross-section of Mongolias independent media landscape finds enthusiasm for AI as a tool to improve efficiency, sustainability and resi...
21/07/2026
With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...
Company Owner Fred Vogler Relies on a Combo of New and Existing Sound Files Recorded with DPA's 4091 Omni Condenser and 4560 Binaural Mics and MMA-A Interface.
