In this craft interview, Rick Bernier reflects on a career that has taken him to the very top of live broadcast audio. As a Senior Broadcast Audio A1 Engineer and Music Director, he has mixed some of the world's most watched events from the Winter Games to Football Night in America (FNIA).What is your background and how did you get into broadcast sound?
Like many of my contemporaries, I started out in music. I studied Audio Engineering & Music Production at the Institute of Production & Recording in Minneapolis and interned at Magic Shop recording studio in Manhattan after graduation.
I became the lead A1 for a mobile church in Greenwich, Connecticut, and started a for-hire live event production company. My career in broadcast began at ESPN as a studio tech where at first I learned to A2, manage comms, run camera (manned & robotic), video shading, and soon after started mixing as an A1 on SportsCenter, NFL Live, Friday Night Fights. I also helped build custom animation sound design packages in ProTools for shows like UNITE, First Take, and the X-Games.
I then took a position as Senior Audio Engineer and Music Director at Back9Network. After the network shut down, I freelanced full time for MLB (Major League Baseball) Network & NHL (National Hockey League) Network in New Jersey. Next came a staff A1 role at CNBC, which ultimately led me to NBC Sports for whom my first assignment was the 2016 Rio Games (stationed in Stamford, CT).
How many times have you worked on Winter Games events, and how has audio production changed during this time?
This will be my sixth Games - my third Winter Games. Looking back to 2016, the Primetime production team was in-country, and more event productions / talent VO happened in-country as well. There were many events produced in Stamford (Soccer, Basketball, and others), but it wasn't what we'd think of as a full REMI production today.
My main console is a Calrec Artemis, and we have a Brio on standby as a backup. The Artemis is built with everything I need, with customised fader breakouts for tracking all Atmos channels, VO mics, upmixing and routing to Atmos busses as needed, music playback, SFX etc.
Rick Bernier
In 2018, for Pyeongchang, we saw the first implementation of the Calrec RP1 in our studios in South Korea. RP1s have become an integral part of many of our productions, and it all started with those Winter Games. I was mixing Primetime for NBC Sports Network (the 24-hour coverage option that year), and our studio in South Korea interfaced with an RP1 for in-country mix-plus (with virtual faders controlled over IP from our consoles in Stamford), and as the front end for studio mics to TX.
Something that will stick with me forever was when a studio op tripped on the ethernet cable and unplugged the RP1 with less than 10 minutes to air on our first night. Thankfully my host mic remained tracked virtually, and because we only lost control (not routing etc.) we continued rehearsing while the A2 reconnected and then (thankfully) added some strain-relief and locking protection with a zip-tie so it wouldn't happen again.
You just finished working on NBC's Primetime in Milan, Winter Games show. How do you approach planning such a prestigious broadcast event? What are the key milestones?
Audio planning for all Games starts with a high-level design from Karl Malone (Senior Director, Audio Engineering Olympics) and his in-country plan for presenting all venues, events, integration with OBS, the IBC, and more.
Mike DiCrescenzo (Director, Audio and Production Workflows) works to ensure everything meets Production's needs and fits into the capabilities of our Stamford facility and in-country. Mike D oversees how all audio is integrated into every ACR, VO booths (32 of them), multiple production trucks, edit rooms, studios in the US and this time in Italy and everywhere in between for the Games.
Mike D is a madman and a friend, and his contributions and oversight to all things NBC Sports audio really can't be overstated. He's mixed just about every big show you can think of for NBCS, and Stamford would function very differently without him. He was the lead A1 on FNIA for over a decade, NBC Primetime for Olympics, Kentucky Derby's, Indy 500s, Super Bowl pre/halfs/post and so much more. He's got immense experiential, technical and creative knowledge, and I've learned so much from him through the years.
As the Games approach, Mike, myself, and the rest of the Stamford audio team build our console and comms files for every show, and as the wave of freelancers come in, we help get everyone settled and dialled in for their assignments.
You mixed the Games at NBC's Stamford IBC facility using a Calrec Artemis console with a Calrec Brio for backup. Can you talk us through the workflow?
For NBC Primetime, we cover all the biggest storylines and events. Our show is a culmination of all that the Games are, which is more than just a sporting event. We really try to lean into the art and flavour of the Games as telling the human stories, introduce the viewer to the host country, lean into the power of music, and of course, showcase the best of the best events.
In addition to mixing, I've also built the music packages (music for highlights, fullscreens, bumpers, country-flavour, orchestrals, emotives, and more) for the last few Games, and Primetime is a joy to mix because I get to play a lot of the music I've curated and edited.
We also did segment hits into the Super Bowl, NBA Allstar game, and NBC News so we're sort of the nightly hub for all major events throughout the Games.
My main console is a Calrec Artemis, and we have a Brio on standby as a backup. The Artemis is built with everything I need, with customised fader breakouts for tracking all Atmos channels, VO mics, upmixing and routin
