Live From MLB at Field of Dreams: The Game May Look Old, But It Sounds New By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Thursday, August 11, 2022 - 12:44 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
MLB Field of Dreams game is back in Dyersville, IA, tonight, with the Chicago Cubs facing the Cincinnati Reds in what has become the most-watched regular-season national-broadcast game in the past quarter century. The 8,000-seat pop-up stadium built last year is ready to go, with the Calrec Hydra, Dante networking, and fiber infrastructure put in place for last year's event.
Ballplayers wear period uniforms and enter the stadium from a cornfield at the edge of center-right field, evoking the movie that inspired the MLB event. In fact, windows were included in the design of the right-field wall to reveal the 159 acres of cornfields beyond the ballpark and provide views of the movie set.
The Sound of Corn The audio for the game will be very much 21st century; you just won't be able to see how it's done. For A1 Joe Carpenter, the challenge is to collect the baseball's usual sound elements but keep the process invisible to viewers. That means, for instance, doing without the parabolic collectors that would normally be seen in the outfield. However, there will be two parabs behind home plate and several lavalier mics embedded around the plate and the pitcher's mound to pick up bat cracks and other effects. And there will be a wired cornfield mic, an Audio-Technica AT4050, past the outfield fence.
For the MLB at Field of Dreams game, Fox Sports' audio team aims to capture even the whispers of the corn in the wind.
Carpenter will manage those microphones, as well as the Q5X PlayerMics worn by the Reds' six-time All-Star first baseman Joey Votto and the Cubs' 2022 All-Star outfielder Ian Happ. Offering viewers a look inside the game, the players will converse with Fox Sports announcers Joe Davis and John Smoltz during the game.
Meanwhile, submixer Joel Groeblinghoff will be looking for some very specific sounds, including catching the whisper of corn stalks moving in the wind and as the ballplayers dramatically enter the field. The challenge, he says, is finding ways to pick those nuanced sounds up without compromising the aesthetic conceit of the event.
We'll be able to put between seven and maybe eight RF lavs on the outfield fence, a couple of parabs in left and right foul territory, says Groeblinghoff, who will be working on a Calrec Brio console in a trailer separate from Game Creek Encore's units, one of which will house Carpenter. Closer in, I'll also have a couple of dugout microphones and RF lavs in the bases.
A Quiet Place
Although the number of effects microphones is smaller than for typical event-type matches, such as All-Star or postseason games, their collective power is perhaps greater because it's a much quieter environment, with a much smaller crowd. It's quiet enough, says Carpenter, to pick up some of the vintage sounds of this game, such as the creak of the ladder used by the scorekeeper to update the manual scoreboard and the clank of the rusty metal numbers as they are hung inning after inning.
This is really more like a minor-league game in terms of sound but with way more microphones, says Groeblinghoff. You can hear and pick up a lot more of what's going on. Last year, I was hearing plenty of complete conversations on first and second base from those microphones because it was so quiet. You're not fighting the PA system here. The noise floor is way down on this game; it literally changes the gain structure [of the console].
Says Carpenter, This game is all about being respectful of its environment, of where it's being played.
He adds that the production will integrate clips from the movie and some experimental AR elements, such as having the late Harry Caray lead the crowd in singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. There'll be a lot to hear, but they don't want to see anything in the outfield but the corn.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
29/05/2026
At just 20 years old, Sean Melia from Summerhill Co. Meath has been revealed as the winner of Super Garden 2026. Sean is the youngest ever contestant and winner...
29/05/2026
Experimental HIV vaccine achieves a long-sought goal In a first for the field, all non-human primates given a new series of vaccines generated antibodies capabl...
28/05/2026
Thomsons Climate Crisis Toolkit is already being put to work, helping journalist...
28/05/2026
FOX Sports' MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy ...
28/05/2026
One of the most memorable postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...
28/05/2026
NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most-decorated and most-watched pro...
28/05/2026
The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...
Live From MLB at Field of Dreams: The Game May Look Old, But It Sounds New By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
