EQ for Basketball FX Mics

2 Schools of thought when I peruse the Presets on some of the digital consoles I encounter on the road. Many of the top Sports engineers tend to do very little EQ on FX mics. Others do quite a bit.

This past NBA season I made some reference recordings (Flat - No EQ, no processing) of the actual microphones I am using for Key area (paint) and hoop mics. This allowed me to do some research on the sounds I am trying to capture.

I then took those recordings into Adobe Audition, and use its frequency analysis tools to find the critical frequencies to bring the mics to life.

On the graphic below you see a approximate representation of my EQ settings for both Key and Hoop mics.

On Key mics, I try to utilize the physical connection to the basketball hoop support stantion arm to my advantage and bring out its resonant frequency. At the Palace their is a considerable resonance around 90Hz. On the graph below I would include it in the Low Shelf boost then roll off most of the low end leaving 90Hz as its peak on the low end of the spectrum.

Another note you can see illustrated in the OVERLAY graphic... the frequencies of the Key and Hoop mics are not similar, in this manner when you get them blended in together you get a rather robust overall sound with presence.

Overall, traveling around to the other NBA arenas I find these settings work fairly well from building to building.



I will attempt to add sound files of my before and after processing as well.

EDIT: I am going to provide a graphic on microphone choices and placement.

Kyle