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
24/12/2025
What is AI good for? Posted by MTI Film on December 24, 2025
What is AI good for?
What is AI good for?
It's been three years since ChatGPT first cap...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
Love, Fights, and Everything in Between: Badly in Love' Returns for Season 2
Entertainment
24 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied t...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's The Great Flood and Culinary Class Wars 2 Top Gl...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shap...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
Live From MLB at Field of Dreams: The Game May Look Old, But It Sounds New By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
