Jeri Palumbo Discusses her Extensive Career, eSports and the Future of Audio Mixing

Jeri Palumbo Discusses her Extensive Career, eSports and the Future of Audio Mixing posted: 17/07/2019

Jeri Palumbo is a television broadcast engineer, audio mixer and RF tech who's worked on hi-profile sports shows for more than 25 years. She's been part of the TV audio team for all of the most celebrated sporting events, including the Super Bowl, NBA and NHL playoffs, and most recently, the World Series. Not only did Jeri have some great stories, but she also explained so much about what goes on behind the scenes at sporting events that we never get to see, including the many types of audio jobs and even the hierarchy of NFL games. Let's put it like this - it's nothing like life in a recording studio.

Q: Can you provide some background on who you are and what you do?

I have nearly 30 years of technical experience, ranging from live audio engineering of major league sports and entertainment broadcasts to being a recording engineer/producer and arranger, where it all started. I also have a background in IT technology and dabbled as an Avid editor. My first real job, though, was in marketing and merchandising for Radio City Music Hall.

Q: How did you get into the broadcast audio business?

As a composition orchestration major at Julliard, I was hired to do an orchestration/arrangement for an artist who was making a small indie record in New York. As the musical director on the project, I would sit with the engineer for the mix-down and part of the tracking. The engineer on that project was using a Fairlight - an audio wave manipulator that was kind of like a precursor to Pro Tools - and it really just rocked my world. It was the first time I ever encountered that type of tool and I was fascinated by it. I started hanging out with the engineers and watching what they were doing - how they were tracking and capturing sound - and just kind of following them around. That's how I ended up on what I call, the other side of the glass.

To be fair, I grew up recording and hacking and splicing tape before I even knew what I was doing. Being from a family of musicians, we always had various recording equipment options around, one being a reel-to-reel Revere tape machine; which I still own today. I used it for every single recording I made from about six to 18 years old, when I went off to college.

Q: What challenges come along with being a woman in audio/broadcast?

You really have to know your stuff - and even when you know your stuff, I feel women get questioned more than our counterparts because engineering is still a male-dominated industry. When I walk into a new environment, even though I have 27 years of experience, I often face the same misconceptions. The best answer I have found to this is to do my job well, surround myself with good people and never second-guess my abilities. Every time someone asks me about this topic, I reference the Paul F. Davis quote: Go where you are celebrated, not where merely tolerated. I truly live my life by that viewpoint - I make my career decisions by it and I stand by it.

Q: How have you seen audio technologies evolve over your career? How has this changed sports programming and the way in which you work?

It's gotten far more complicated; there are far more responsibilities on the A1 than there used to be. We have progressed significantly in the way we handle our source material and the way we disperse it - and that's all been through the digital age and products like Calrec. Brands that could foresee what was coming, and tried to find a way to not only condense it, but also find different ways to matrix that out seamlessly has really helped the day-to-day for A1s. There is just so much that we're now doing for domestic feeds, or any other feeds, that we didn't normally do years ago. We've added 5.1 mixes, when it used to be a stereo out. Weve added multiple stereo outputs simultaneously for music cuts. We've also condensed a lot of elements that would have been impossible to handle by one person. One thing that has not changed for the A1 in the sports broadcast world is that we are still responsible for all the comms as well. In the entertainment world, you rarely see an A1 mixing their own comms, but we still do that in the sports broadcast world. So now our job is far more complicated - but the technology, and we as engineers, have also come a long, long way.

Jeri Palumbo Studio Set-up

Q: What Calrec consoles do you use during broadcasts and what are some of the standout features or functions that have been helpful?

I use Calrec's Artemis console - the 5.1 direct out is extremely helpful for me because I use it all the time, along with the auto mix. For me, this feature is not so much about the auto mixing, but rather the fact that I never have an issue with volume wars between commentators/reporters, and I know that has a lot to do with the auto mixer on the console. The parametric EQs can be copied from fader-to-fader, and the Artemis' compressors are dynamite and work seamlessly for me. Also, I use the cloning functionality all the time for my workflow. I make homes for my original sources and I clone everything from my top sources. So, cloning, 5.1 direct out, auto-mixer, parametric EQs and great-sounding compressors are all invaluable tools from Calrec; I use these all the time.

Q: How does mixing for eSports differ from traditional broadcast sports?

Mixing for eSports is dramatically different than live sports. For one, there is a significant difference in the air-time between the two; eSports can be live for sometimes 12 hours, or more, depending on the length of a round. But, the other, significant difference is that live sports is somewhat predictable, whereas eSports is like the wild west. But, that's the fun part.

eSports is mostly Web-based with a lot of audio

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