MLB Postseason 2023: An Audio Change-Up Is Planned for Fox Sports ALCS Coverage A1 Joe Carpenter is altering the mix for more sonic dynamism from the field By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Friday, October 13, 2023 - 7:00 am
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For sports broadcasts, audio capture is often reduced to a matter of microphone choices, positions, and locations - something that has been honed to an art form over the decades. However, viewers tuning into Fox Sports' coverage of the MLB Division and, starting this weekend, League Championship Series will hear what happens when it's the workflow and the perspectives that are the change-ups being thrown.
Veteran Fox Sports lead A1 Joe Carpenter will be handling the main mix for the games, as usual, supported by submixer Joel Groeblinghoff, who has teamed with Carpenter on these series for the past three years. Based on some experimentation over the past year, they will be rebalancing their respective mix responsibilities to what Carpenter hopes will be an audible and palpable shift in the games' audio dynamics. It's a new workflow he intends to begin implementing during the MLB ACLS starting on Sunday, Oct. 15 and may extend through Fox Sports' airing of the World Series.
Fox Sports' Joe Carpenter looks to add a nice old-school pop to the sound. We'd kind of gotten away from what analog sounds like, and I'd forgotten how good it sounded.
I'm giving Joel more shovel work and I'm using a paint brush more often is Carpenter's muscular metaphor for the shift. Instead of just manning the array of effects sources that populate a single channel of Carpenter's console aboard Game Creek Yogi for the Championship Series (he's aboard NEP ND-1 for the Divisionals), Groeblinghoff will mix a number of effects sources as separate channels, which can change the dynamics of the final mix on-air.
I started giving Joel more workload last October, maybe adding a dugout robo and the bullpens, Carpenter says, and he started doing some cool stuff. Once he got one of the players popping his bubble gum in the dugout, and I was like, Yeah, I'm convinced.' I had opened the fader a thousand times before in search of that holy grail of the bubble-popping, and he gets it in his second game.
New Perspectives for a Cinematic Approach Meanwhile, that allows Carpenter to make some new moves in terms of perspective that could bring a greater sense of what he calls a cinematic approach to the sound of the game.
This frees me up to concentrate more on the big picture, to do more with the surrounds, more motion in them, he explains. Instead of just [static] crowd mics, picking between them as the crowd dynamic changes, I can make the crowd sound more alive and part of the game. It'll give me the chance to do more critical listening and making mix choices based on that, instead of having to catch every single individual moment.
According to A1 Joe Carpenter, Haun Oss Jecklin Disc provides an isolated, binaural effect, an immersive effect, within a surround field.
Carpenter is also using some new techniques, such as a pair of Haun Oss Jecklin disc arrays: a sound-absorbing disc placed between two omnidirectional microphones to create an acoustic shadow between them, producing an enhanced stereo effect. He'll position these behind and above home plate, aimed at the batter's-eye spot in centerfield.
It gives you an isolated, binaural effect, an immersive effect, within a surround field, the same principle as putting microphones in your ears and recording and listening it back, he says. If you're listening on a good sound system or on headphones or even a good soundbar, it's an amazing effect. And you can adjust them on the fly, depending on the stadium. No matter where you set the pattern, you can play with the width and the imaging on the console. I'm going to try a couple of Sennheiser MKH 8020 short omnis, with a personal-pizza-size Jecklin disc between them. I'll also try them high over first or third base, too. The trick will be to not make the effect too jarring, because you can really hear it. It doesn't necessarily change your perspective as you watch, but it definitely enhances it. It makes it feel more real.
Relying more on Groeblinghoff, Carpenter adds, changes the A1/submixer relationship in a way that keeps the individual effects elements present in the overall soundfield and could even give them more presence while freeing the A1 to create a more ambitious overall mix that is even more engaging to home viewers and can better leverage good home-audio setups.
The sound is in there, he says. This is a chance to move it around with more excitement.
And Some Familiar Tools The workflow may change, but postseason audio still relies on many of the capture standbys: Sennheiser SK250 transmitters and MK2 lavalieres positioned in the bases, Q5X AquaMics buried around the pitcher's mound and in the infield, and a Q5X transmitter fitted with a DPA omnidirectional lav on the umpires. Fox's umpire mics are in addition to the lavalier worn by the officials' crew chief as mandated by the league starting last season.
Parabolic reflectors, fitted with DPA lav mics, will be located around home plate for bat-crack and other key sound elements, helping to focus on and isolate that area from the often overwhelming crowd noise. According to Carpenter, his team has come to rely heavily on the parabolic mics aimed at the home-plate area to provide a reliable foundation for effects when it's uncertain whether players or umpires will be wearing lavs for a particular game.
His strategies include rolling off the equalization of the crowd and parabolic microphones at about 240 Hz. However, that can create some collateral issues, such a
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MLB Postseason 2023: An Audio Change-Up Is Planned for Fox Sports ALCS Coverage A1 Joe Carpenter is altering the mix for more sonic dynamism from the field By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
