TNT Sports' Dave Grundtvig Finds Sonic Gold in a Second Mic Array at NBA Summer League

24/07/2024

TNT Sports' Dave Grundtvig Finds Sonic Gold in a Second Mic Array at NBA Summer League Like a parabolic, but on steroids' By Dan Daley, Audio Editor

Wednesday, July 24, 2024 - 2:35 pm

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The NBA's Summer League is basketball's Skunk Works, and this year's series at the UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas produced another new wrinkle for B-ball audio: a commercial audio product repurposed for broadcast-sports applications.

Turner Sports' Dave Grundtvig holding a Shure MXA710 microphone unit

For the Summer League series broadcasts, Turner Sports Senior Audio Supervisor, Remote Operations, Dave Grundtvig placed a pair of Shure MXA901 ceiling-array microphone units on the sides of the basket stanchions facing the court. Developed to capture sound in corporate conference-type rooms, the MXA901 has multiple mic elements grouped into eight steerable lobes arranged in a planar array and picks up sound clearly in a 20- x 20-ft. space in front of it, according to its spec sheet. It's normally installed overhead in a conference environment, but Grundtvig places his vertically, covering the action near the baskets and beyond on a 94- x 50-ft. NBA court.

It's like a parabolic, but on steroids, he quips. A parabolic gives you one [microphone] output; this gives you eight.

Built on Experience A Shure MXA901 microphone unit in place on the front of a basket stanchion

It's a step beyond the similar application that he developed for Shure's MXA710 linear microphone array, used for the 2022 Summer League, and has since deployed for NBA regular-season games and other events on TNT Sports. Grundtvig also used the MXA710 for this year's Summer League, attaching them length-wise to the vertical arm supporting the basket and putting two at mid court, one on each side of the court.

Both MXA units have Shure's IntelliMix digital-signal processing for such applications as acoustic echo cancellation, noise reduction, automatic mixing, automatic gain control (AGC), compression, delay, and equalization on the Automix Output channel. For instance, it can be tuned to listen for certain types of sounds or frequencies and either enhance or reject them.

Audio routing is controlled through a remote device on a Dante or AES67 network, and digital-signal processing is controllable from any computer on the network. Browser-based control software provides steerable coverage, with the ability to aim individual lobes as needed.

The MXA units sharing the IntelliMix software established a network of remotely programmable pickup lobes that - based on the programming of function parameters, such as setting thresholds for gating and steering - would create a mix of effects managed by a combination of DSP and gain sharing. It's an automatic mixing process whereby the total gain of the system remains constant: for example, each individual input channel is attenuated by an amount, in dB, equal to the difference between that channel's level and the sum of all channel levels.

Teaching the Crowd Canceller' A Turner Sports A2 adjusts the positioning of an MXA901 mic unit.

Selective noise reduction is being applied through the IntelliMix software. When a particular combination of frequency and SPL is recognized by a mic lobe tuned for it, the software will attenuate or remove that noise, leaving more space for the desired sounds -Grundtvig calls it the crowd canceller. For instance, he says, cheers or music from the PA system getting into an announcer's microphone can be automatically and instantly reduced, helping keep the announcer's audio more intelligible.

To create the learning environment for the software, he explains, he and his team recorded hours of basketball-effects sounds and did impulse-response recordings in the arena, essentially creating an acoustical map that the microphone lobes could follow and stay focused on the sound of play.

The machine has learned to pass basketball sounds and reject everything else, he says. If I can get a 2- to 3-dB reduction in PA sound in the effects or announcer mics, I can help make them both more pronounced and defined in the overall mix.

Practical Benefits Grundtvig consulted with Shure design engineers on the novel applications of the hardware and software. The units he's using allow him to choose either automated or manual aiming of the microphone lobes. That kind of flexibility has practical benefits.

Two mic arrays are located on one stanchion during NBA Summer League series.

[With venues] selling all these courtside seats, you have fewer places to mount microphones anymore, he points out. This solves that problem. I can pick up sound from most of the court with either one of the planar arrays. With 16 lobes, I can pretty much cover the entire court. It was like a laser beam.

It also addresses a workflow issue for the broadcast A1, whose input-source list is increasingly larger and more complex. The use of automated and programmable systems like these, Grundtvig says, allows smoother transitions between sounds as games progress, as well as creating a broadcast soundscape that's easier for the A1 to shape. It could also, he acknowledges, create less need for live submixers in some circumstances.

One of two MXP710 linear microphone arrays at mid court

The goal is to create space, so that the [A1] isn't constantly focusing on manually mixing so many faders, he says. That gives you the space to refine everything else in the mix.

Grundtvig's developmental work for basketball sound comes amid an inflection point for the sport's broadcast and streaming rights. The NBA had tentatively concluded an 11-year, $75 billion broadcast deal with Disney, NBC, and Amazon. TNT Sports has carried the NBA'

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TNT Sports' Dave Grundtvig Finds Sonic Gold in a Second Mic Array at NBA Summer League

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