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
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
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'
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
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
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...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
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...
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 
